THE ADVENTURERS
Passionate about exploring regional cuisine, Lindsay Anderson ( left) and Dana Vanveller ditched their jobs to take the Canadian foodie road trip of a lifetime, blogging about it along the way.
It seems like something you’d read about or watch on TV: Two young women with a desire to learn more about their country’s food traditions pack up and drive coast-to-coast, meeting farmers and home cooks and tasting local delicacies. But for Vancouver residents Dana Vanveller and Lindsay Anderson, this wasn’t a book or a TV show (at least not yet!). It was real life.
The duo, who met through Lindsay’s ex-boyfriend, bonded over their love of food. While “lounging on a log in the sunshine” during a weekend camping trip, she says, they started talking about how Canadians don’t do enough to celebrate our unique cuisine. They wondered what it would be like to explore each province and territory’s food culture—and their fun what-if soon turned into a serious plan.
“We were both at this interesting point in our lives,” says Lindsay. “Dana had a job she liked but had been at it for a while, and she felt like she didn’t have a ton more learning to do. And I had just finished a big writing contract with Tourism Richmond that had been great but exhausting. We were in our late 20s and unattached, and had no mortgages or kids, so we were in a position to go off and have this adventure.”
They started meeting up after work, spending hours in coffee shops plotting their hypothetical trip: how long they’d be away (they initially intended to finish in four months but ended up needing five), where they would go (all 10 provinces, all three territories) and, most importantly, how they’d pay for the ambitious journey (a combo of personal savings, fundraising and help from regional tourism boards).
Dropping $20 on a domain name made it real. “Neither of us is the type of person who would casually buy a domain name. It had come to the point where we had put in enough work, and we were, like, ‘OK, let’s do this!’ ” says Dana.
“We didn’t really know what we were doing, but we kept putting one foot in front of the other. It kept getting bigger and scarier, to the point where we started [thinking], Are we totally nuts? What have we got ourselves into? But we just kept going,” says Lindsay.
They set off in June 2013; one early highlight was a kayaking expedition around Spring Island, a remote but stunning spot off the northwest coast of Vancouver Island. Afterward, they participated in a traditional salmon feast prepared by members of the Kyuquot First Nations community, in which the fish is filleted, then threaded through cedar slats and propped up near a campfire to roast. From there, they toured the rest of B.C., the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Alberta, before heading east across the country. The pair drove home through the U.S., detouring to visit Churchill, Man., before finally flying to Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, to cap off the trip.
Along the way, they learned a lot about Canadian food. “It’s hugely influenced by First Nations peoples, it’s influenced by immigrants, it’s influenced by the landscape, by the season, by trends—so the best way to celebrate it is to [honour] its diversity, be open to learning about all of it and not worry about trying to tidily collect it into one cohesive thought. And that is sort of how we feel about Canada, too,” says Lindsay.
And their takeaway clearly resonated; the pair documented the journey on their blog, Feast: An Edible Road Trip, and each post garnered so much interest that, upon their return, Dana and Lindsay wondered if they could turn the experience into a book. Before the trip, they probably wouldn’t have been so ambitious, but going on this adventure changed how they approach their goals.
“We now think way bigger than we did before. You might as well go big and try for the craziest thing; even if it doesn’t happen, you still learn something in the process and maybe you land on something that’s not quite as big but still amazing,” says Lindsay. “The reason we have a book now is because of this attitude. How could it hurt to write the book proposal? The worst they could say is ‘no,’ and [in the process] we learned [something].”
Fortunately, the proposal was accepted. A cookbook based on their adventures comes out this month, and they will soon be on the road again for their first book tour.
“Risk builds your skill set for facing hard things,” says Dana. “You have more confidence and more experience in how to make something work or how to handle unforeseen problems.”
Feast: Recipes and Stories From a Canadian Road Trip, based on Dana and Lindsay’s crosscountry tour, is on sale this month.
The year 2016 at the start of this book is not the 2016 you knew. Because of the invention of the Goettreider Engine in 1965, energy production has never been an issue. Food is a formless putty that can be moulded, flavoured and shaped into any combination of dishes. Fashion trends shift by the minute, rather than by the season, since clothing is made from an endlessly malleable futuristic fabric. And, yes, hover cars exist. But while life in 2016 is good, Tom Barren isn’t happy. A perennial underachiever, Tom lives in the shadow of his scientist father’s success. When Tom’s mother dies in a tragic accident, his dad adds him to the team executing his most significant experiment: time travel to the exact moment Prof. Lionel Goettreider turns on his legendary machine. Tom isn’t actually supposed to go on the mission—he’s an understudy—but a sequence of events leads him to rashly activate the time machine on his own and catapult through time and space to 1965. The results are disastrous: A string of minute interferences on Tom’s part leads to a complete malfunction of Goettreider’s device. When Tom returns to the present, it’s the 2016 we knew, and everything—and everyone—he knew is gone or altered, including himself. Elan Mastai’s debut novel is a must for any sci-fi fan, but anyone who appreciates whip-smart prose and intrepid imagination will also get a kick out of this fantastical time-bending tale. — Jes Watson