Christles Yukon Gold Savoury Moose Stew

My eyes shot open in the darkness as soon as I heard the sound of tiny footprints scurrying across the floor. There was a crack under my hotel room door that allowed just enough light from the hallway in to see a small shadow squeeze under the door, push through the light, and disappear into the darkness. I flipped on the light and sure enough, there they were…

​I was headed into the Yukon just as October was rounding the corner and had swapped my camping gear for battery-powered socks and gloves, an electric heated vest, winter boots, a box of handwarmers to put on my knee caps, my snowboarding jacket, and a full rainsuit to block the wind. At this time of year, I was very aware that the further I headed north, the closer I was getting to winter.

With the days in YT getting colder, shorter, and the potential for blizzards looming, I’d left Nova Scotia and headed west. What I rode in 5 months to get there was undone in 5 days. I don’t recommend riding a 250cc dirtbike across the second-largest country in the world in under a week, but I had a story to finish!

The Yukon has more quirks than just gold rushes and pubs famed for cocktails with human toe garnishes. For one, it’s a territory, not a province. In 2003, the name was changed to Yukon, instead of Yukon Territory. A name adopted from what is assumed to be the “Yu-kun-ah”, meaning “Great River,” given to it by the Gwich'in people of the area. Formalities aside, locals have simply been referring to the area as The Yukon, a name made official when it was changed, again, in 2021.

So here I am, in The Yukon, enjoying a stunning fall motorcycle ride on winding roads that burst through the clouds and up over mountain peaks — hugged by the most incredible red and yellow leaves with a vibrant green pine forest backdrop. I rode past deer and coyotes; stopped to take some photos of a herd of bison while one walked right up beside me, and got within camera shot of a black bear and her three cubs doing some last-minute berry picking. The Yukon is a wildlife wonderland! 

I stopped in Watson Lake to spend the night and visit the Watson Lake signpost forest. A unique forest filled with a collection of road signs and other signs from around the world. The tradition started when a homesick GI who was part of the construction crew building the Alaska Highway was putting up directional signs. He added a personal sign, noting the mileage to his hometown of Danville, Illinois. The signposts we have all seen the world over, noting the distance to one country's location or the next, appear to have all started here. Today, there are nearly 80,000 signs! 

Heated grips on high and my electric vest on medium, I rolled into Whitehorse a week or so after leaving Alberta, and soon after my arrival, there was snow on the ground. CBC was still following my adventure and I found myself in a radio interview with CBC Radio One, Whitehorse. From here, I was put in touch with First Nations local, Christle Moulton and her partner, Tom.  
    
    Often, when I reach out to people on short notice, mentioning that I’d like to show up at their place with the hopes of a personal explanation of their food and culture, it can often come with a touch of suspicious pushback. To my delight, Christle basically said come over to our place in Carcross, we’ve got some wild game with your name on it – and so I went!

    Primarily home to the ​​Carcross/Tagish First Nations, Carcross is a stunning town that sits roughly halfway between Whitehorse and Skagway, Alaska. Formerly named Caribou Crossing for the massive number of caribou that used to pass through the area. These numbers today are low but rising under local conservation efforts.  

    I stopped to take some photos of a black bear along the way and arrived late. Unphased, the couple's small-town hospitality was infectious, and their northern home is a direct reflection of the surroundings. Working in the wood business, the house is accented with a mix of old and derelict chainsaws. A bit like a home in Vancouver might have a rock feature in the front yard, their home has a chainsaw feature. 

The backyard is dotted with beautiful, towering pine trees. To one side is a greenhouse and garden where they grow their own vegetables. Then off to the other side, Tom points out a woodshed wrapped around a food smoker…it smells like it might be warming up! Then, at the center of it all, for family and friends to enjoy, is a crackling fire surrounded by stones.

My hosts lay out a plan for the day that includes smoking some salmon and trout, making a moose stew, and doctoring up a local medicine from the bush. With a long list of to-dos and a short amount of sunshine, I see Tom already has three fillets of fish laid out  – two pink and one orange.

This isn’t just any fish. Despite being surrounded by lakes, they source these proteins from very specific bodies of water. The trout comes upstream from Tutshi (too-shy) Lake. The lake's higher elevation means cooler water, making it harder for the fish to grow. This leads to a denser, meatier trout. The pink salmon was acquired south of here in B.C., a province renowned for its excellent salmon.

    Tom treats the fillets to a light sprinkle of pink salt and leaves them to rest while giving me a tour of the smoker. The smoker is traditional in that it’s a standard electric smoker, but with a few northern modifications. First, it's wrapped in a layer of upcycled metal to help retain heat and possibly delay intrusions from coyotes or bears. On the inside, Tom doesn’t use commercial smoking chips. To narrow in on a select flavor, he harvests local wood like willow and alder, dries them, and then cuts them into small pucks similar in size to the ones traditionally used. Today, we’re smoking with red alder for its rich flavor and slow burn time.

The setup sits protected inside their woodshed, accented with an antique two-man logger's saw and a couple racks of moose antlers. One set is a massive 63.5” rack from one of Tom's hunts years earlier. The other is from her son's first moose kill when he was just ten! She explains that in their culture, the first time you kill a moose, you, the hunter, aren't meant to eat it. Instead, you give the entire moose away; her gift was the head. I wonder if my mom would have been as excited unwrapping a fresh moose head as Christle probably was.

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To beat early northern frosts, they had their garden out of the ground in September, and a selection of that organic bounty is part of the menu today. Turnips, potatoes, carrots, and onions are already simmering inside, along with some moose meat for a stew. By the time the explanation wraps up, the smoker's temperature is hot enough, the fillets are salted enough, and into the smoker they go.

I want to dig into what life up here is really like and start by asking about hunting and living through the winters. Christle says that when she was a kid, it wasn’t unusual to get -50°C days and bitter, harsh winters. Nowadays, though, that’s almost unheard of, and a harsh winter day is closer to a balmy -30°C. Now, where did I put my shorts?

As for harvesting meat from the land, Christle clarifies that with First Nations status, locals can hunt year-round and without a licence. When they do, it's for sustenance, not for trophy racks. If you see a group of hunters harvesting multiple animals, that group is typically the hunters for a certain number of households. 

As a community, there are some underlying rules they try to operate within. For example, if you were to harvest a moose, you would harvest the bull moose over the cow, as it’s the cow that's more important for producing offspring. There are also strict rules put in place with input from the Territory's government, as well as the Carcross/Tagish Renewable Resources Council, for at-risk species like the woodland caribou, which can be harvested in extremely low numbers. 

 Instead of individual hunts, one of the things they do is have the local school apply for special permission to hunt a couple of caribou as a class project. The intent of this is to show the kids how to hunt and harvest this specific species, so the knowledge is not lost. This year, however, the success rate was zero.

Now I know if you’re reading this at home, sipping on your Starbucks, waiting for your bucket of KFC to arrive at your door, you’re thinking;
A: How could anyone shoot a wild animal? 
B: Why go to all the work of butchering when steaks are on sale at the store?

 Personally, I think that if you are going to eat meat, I feel like at least one time in your life you should be a part of the process between life and lunch. Once you’ve had to be part of more than simply scanning the barcode on your steaks, you’ll probably never waste a strip of meat again in your life. You might even reconsider how much of it you consume. 

If that doesn’t phase you, you may want to visit a large-scale commercial farm. After seeing the administration of various vaccinations, supplements, and scientifically modified foods that might end up in an animal, again, you might think twice. As well as the general standards of acceptable practices used to raise commercially grown meat, then compare this to the natural environment of a wild game, you might consider which of those you’d prefer to put in your own body. 

Known to utilize as much of the animal as possible, I’ve seen First Nations recipes for things like moose tongue or nose. Christle explains that the elders in their community even find a use for the intestines. They’ll boil the intestine, including the large intestine that leads right out the back door! Noting that they are particular about it too, and if you overwash the intestine, you’ll get chastised, as it’s just meant to have a light rinse to retain as much of the original flavour as possible. Once boiled, it's consumed no differently than any of the other meats. 

I think I’ve found the inspiration for the quote; This tastes like sh!t, I just didn’t know until now that it was a positive expression.

As the fish smokes, we head off on our first adventure. Headed down a rocky trail, Goose and I follow their quads to nearby Nares Lake. The plan is to source some highbush cranberries for a herbal medicine. We stop partway, and Christle asks if I can smell the pungent scent of decomposing foliage in the air. This is the cranberry, she says.

    The road is rough, but the scenery is incredible! The hills are blanketed in yellow leaves that melt down the mountainside into a burnt orange, speckled by the occasional green leaf still hanging on. This all reflects magically off the water in a mix of blue sky & white clouds. It feels like we’re part of a Bob Ross painting without the distraction of his comically oversized fro. Tomorrow it’s meant to snow again; if I’d arrived just one week later, the trees would have been stripped of their colorful leaves, and I would have missed all of the magic nature was showing me right now.

 During the ride, I see Tom and Christle constantly scanning the brush, and I assume they are looking for cranberries. Once we arrive, they explain we’re not looking for cranberries, we’re looking for bears! Glad I wasn’t sent berry picking on my own. 

Before we left, Chrislte broke down the culture for me a little further, pointing out that prior to harvesting anything off the land, they make an offering. Typically, tobacco is offered along with a silent prayer. The offering is to say thank you to the land for allowing them to harvest and the prayer is reflective of why they are harvesting. In this case, to pray that if the medicine is needed, it will work.

    By the time I’ve put my kickstand down and unpack my camera, I can already see Christle standing silently just inside the bushes, facing into the forest. After a few moments, I see her gently toss the tobacco into the brush before turning around to acknowledge me. It's nothing fancy, she says, just regular tobacco set aside strictly for offerings. However, the genuine appreciation in her voice as she explains how thankful she is that they can literally walk out into the wilderness and harvest what they need is inspiring. When I think of how many times I’ve been miffed when a delivery to my doorstep is late. Here she is, after a lifetime of harvesting off the land, and she is still so appreciative. It's a nice reality check.

We’re in prime berry country, and our rose hip and cranberry harvest doesn’t take long. My timing was not only great for fall colors, but for a fall harvest, as the cranberry and rose hips are best harvested after the first frost. The cranberry starts to decompose and reduce some of the tartness, and the rose hip loses its flowers, while the bud becomes sticky and sweeter. 

When I think of medicine, I’m thinking about the worst-case scenario. I have an infection or pain, or some kind of obvious ailment or injury. When Christle says medicine, it's more of an all-encompassing preventative measure and cure. In the case of the cranberry and rose hip tea, its high vitamin C properties mean that you could drink it regularly for the health benefits, or drink it if you have something like a cold to help get rid of it.

As elegantly as possible, she tries to explain the taste of a raw cranberry right off the bush this time of year and mentions that the berry's pungent smell is equivalent to its pungent taste. I’m thinking in my head that the smell isn’t exactly the scent of sugar-laced cranberry juice you get from Oceanspray. Then I hear Tom yell from over in the bushes, They smell like dirty feet! Everyone laughs. Tom nailed it; they smell terrible! I shove one in my mouth to see how close he is. Yikes, these are more bitter than your ex-fiancé seeing your wedding photos online! 

Back at the house, the rose hip and cranberry mix is left to boil over the open fire, checked occasionally by smelling the steam rolling off the top. It’s then held to my nose to see what I think. I’m expecting the full dirty sock smell, but am surprised that the scent is actually quite mild and earthy with a hint of sweetness in the air.

It’s mid-day, and by now there’s an ADHD diagnosis dream of food-related activities going on – they’ve found my happy place!  We have the tea rolling over the campfire, and there's moose stew simmering in the slow cooker. Then we have two varieties of fish inside the woodshed smoker. A round of cold-smoked jarred trout next to Ritz crackers appears, and now we’re headed inside, where a cast-iron pan is warming for a light lunch of fried fish. 

Once hot, the cast-iron pan on the stove is given a base layer of lard. Chunks of trout are shaken with flour, salt & pepper, garlic and dill, then left to lightly fry in the lard. Christle laughs when it comes time to explain the side dish. On the counter is a familiar can and box I’ve seen plenty of times. Christle says that as a kid, whenever they ate fried fish, it was always served with Kraft Dinner mixed with a can of diced tomatoes. 

She is laughing, and I’m laughing as we are both widely aware of how traditionally juxtaposed these foods are. Harvesting off the land in a traditional way was just as reassuring as knowing that somewhere in your cupboard was a meal cherished for its comfort, convenience, and cost-effectiveness – a $1 box of Kraft Dinner. If you’re going to dig into the culinary closet, you might as well put all the skeletons on the table.

The fish is finished and served just like it has been for decades, fried next to the KD mixed with canned diced tomatoes, along with a side of homemade pickled onions. 

Bouncing between food activities, we move back outside to check our fish that's been smoking over the red alder chips for the last 4 ½ hours. The door opens to exhale this heave of smoke that clings to the old metal roof of the wood shed before dissolving up and out into the open air. 

The colors of the fish have alchemized to these deep shades of rich red and orange, matching the burnt orange leaves falling from the trees. The first slab of salmon comes loose with a little snap. Tom nailed it! 

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The sheer amount of local and land knowledge that was coming at me while this was all going on feels like trying to capture a waterfall in a coffee cup. Meats and medicines, history and hierarchy, recipes and relationships, I was in consumption overload – then they stepped things up a level.

Christle shifts gears and tries to explain some of the history of the region. Covering clan life, leadership, marriage, people who first arrived here, and so on. It was fascinating, but it would need to be a book all its own. 

To summarize this particular area, I’ll leave you with this; There are fourteen different First Nations groups around the Yukon, each with its own distinct culture, traditions, and language. To simplify things, Christle says most everyone will identify more broadly as either a Wolf or a Crow. Here in Carcross, there are six distinct clans; Daḵłʼaweidí (Killerwhale) and Yanyeidí (Wolf) are both of Wolf Moieties. Deisheetaan (Beaver), G̱aanax̱teidí (Raven), Kooḵhíttaan (Crow), Ishkahíttaan (Frog) are all of Crow Moiety. Christle belongs to the frog clan. In the past, the clan's leadership would have been appointed, not voted on, and with things like marriage, you were expected to marry the opposite Moiety to keep the world in balance. For example, a Wolf Moiety would marry a Crow Moiety. Today, the rules are more flexible, but honoring tradition is advised. 

Christle's cousin Bessie arrives at the house for a little chat and some lunch. This lovely lady is in her seventies and full of incredible insights and fascinating stories of the past. Hoping to help me understand the history here and my brief look at local medicine, she explained that when they were kids, they would spend six months of the year in the bush. They had to know and understand how each tree or shrub could be utilized if they ever got sick. There was no option for doctors or hospitals. 

Bessie embodies the look of a confident, wise, old woman, and her slow, steady voice makes for some captivating storytelling. She tells a lot of tales this afternoon, and the one about the raven and the water I find fascinating. 

The raven was said to have helped create the lakes, rivers, and oceans here. At the time, there was a chief who held all of the water. He was said to be quite stingy and refused to share the resource with anyone, not even with the raven. He kept the water protected under his bed so no one could get to it. But the old raven was wise, and a bit of a trickster. 

One night, when the Chief was fast asleep, the raven found some wolf poop and quietly rubbed it on the Chief's pants. Finally, when it looked like he’d applied enough, the raven frantically awoke the chief, yelling at him. Chief, Chief, get up, you’ve pooped your pants! Disoriented and concerned, the chief sprang from his bed and ran out to the bushes to address the issue. Just then, the raven scooped up as much of the water as he could into his mouth and flew out of the tent and over the lands.

While he was flying, drops started falling from his mouth and landing onto the dry grounds below, suddenly forming streams, then rivers, and into deep lakes. The further and further away the raven flew, the water in his mouth became briny and brackish. Eventually, it landed in deep crevices on the outer limits of the land forming the oceans. If it weren’t for that clever raven, you might not see the waters you see today.

Bessie says a lot of interesting things, but her ability to subtly note some glaring issues of the past and relate them to modern times, I find eloquent. Here I am, on what happens to be Orange Shirt Day, hoping to learn as much of the local and historical culture and how it relates to the foods they eat. Bessie, who has likely seen her fair share of negative cultural shifts and suppression, doesn’t seem to hold any animosity towards the white guy asking all the questions across from her. 

In her wisdom, she simply explains that there was a time in history when Europeans arrived on these lands and brought with them their beliefs and their church. As their dominance continued, they eventually had the First Nations people burn their traditions and bury their beliefs, trying to get them to forget what they knew. Not to worry, Bessie explains, it’s been a long time, but the Elders were smart people, and they hid a lot of their culture away and verbally passed on the beliefs of the past until the time would come that the young people were ready to live it again; that time is here.

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Tom's smoked fish eventually finds its way onto plates around the campfire, less a large chunk that he’s put into a ziploc bag for my journey home. This fish dish is amazing! Smokey, with just a hint of salt, and still warm from the smoker. As the warm smokey scent continues to linger in the cool air, we enjoy every last bite next to the campfire…the ambience in this moment is next level. 

I’ve basically been eating since arriving here earlier in the day, but this five-course tasting menu has yet to hit its final phase. We move back inside for a quick bannock class to accompany the moose stew that is nearly done. While mixing, Christle points out that the Plains people, (more or less from where I’m from), would typically make a bannock that looks like a fried flat bread, whereas here they make bannock that looks more like little misshapen biscuits. Flour, baking powder, salt, and water are lightly mixed together, leaving the mix a bit chunky, then it's given a light fry in lard. Yum! 

While the bannock is frying in the cast-iron pan, Chrislte puts a handful of mini garden carrots into the moose stew. By the time the bannock is fried, the carrots have softened a touch, and the final course of the day is ready to go. 

Behind us, I can hear Tom clinking some jars on the table. I turn around, and he points out a number of preserved goods they have. Peaches, pickles, raspberry and blueberry jam, jarred trout and salmon. A mini pantry of amazing preserves that he walks me through: how they harvested the berries for the jams, how the trout was cold-smoked and jarred, and how they went about preparing the rest of the goods they acquired at local markets. Then he says something incredible… These are for you!

My heart skipped a beat. If the door prize were a choice of a new car or homemade goods, I’d rather load the jars in my backpack and walk home. Tom is speaking my love language, and I’ve now got that recently cancelled Pepé Le Pew twinkle in my eye. Brace yourself, Tom.

    The simmering stew fills a bowl nearly overflowing and is handed to me along with a fresh piece of imperfectly fried bannock. This warm, savoury dish of meat is so tender it's hard to distinguish which is softer, the turnips or the moose meat. The flavour is rich and not overpowered by spice, just the mingling flavours of home-grown vegetables. Those, along with locally harvested moose meat and a historic slab of authentic Yukon bannock, are a perfect pairing on this cool fall evening.

I didn't anticipate spending the entire day here and am delighted with how it all worked out. The issue is that it's now dark, and I’m a touch concerned the roads might be icy for the two-wheeled ride home. Tom says there might be a few more issues than just icy roads to watch for, as there is a pretty good chance I might see a mule deer on the way out of town, and the bears have been known to wander the ditches at night, just like they do during the day.

    True to his warning, on the ride back to Whitehorse, I passed one set of mule deer eyeballs reflecting back at me, two bears, and one coyote. Interesting, but not exactly the road obstacles you want to come across at night on a motorbike.

    The ride south was considerably colder than my ride up here. I now have all my layers on. The electric socks, sweats, riding pants, a shirt, a long-sleeve hoodie, then my electric vest, snowboard jacket, and handwarmers on my knee caps, all wrapped up in a windproof rainsuit, before sliding on my electric gloves and heated grips. There is a fine line between keeping my face warm and leaving the helmet open just enough to keep the visor from frosting up. On more than a few mornings, I have had to scrape the ice off the seat before sitting down.

    There is some relief on this road, though. Tucked inside a lush boreal spruce forest rests the second-largest natural hot springs in Canada, and one of the most amazing Canadian winter delights. The Liard Hot Springs. A long, cold boardwalk takes you over a steamy marsh before delivering you to a waterside of rolling steam and surreal surroundings. At this time of year, it’s nearly void of travellers. If I had to be caught anywhere in a Canadian winter, this is where I’d want to be. 

    Thinking it was a bit too cold for motorcycle camping, I was staying in a room nearby. However, I met a guy at the hot springs on a motorcycle bigger than mine, who was not headed south. He was headed north! Just when everyone thinks you’re a little off your rocker for going to The Yukon in October, you meet a guy on two wheels who's still attempting to camp his way to the Arctic Circle.

    Back in my room with my slab of smoked salmon, jars of canned goods, and some trail mix, laid out on the dresser, I crawled into my warm bed and turned out the lights – and that's when I heard it. The tiny feet scurrying across the floor of my room, and the gap of light under the door, revealing a tiny shadow pushing through. With the light of my cellphone, I scanned the room to see what it was, and sure enough, mice!

    I sprang for the light switch, then made a dash for the trail mix and bag of goods as little grey shapes quickly disappeared under the dresser and inside little crevices. In one fluid motion, I rounded up everything I had in the room and piled it on the bed next to me, then pulled up all of the blankets and pushed the bed away from the wall. I was now an island of food and motorcycle gear, trapped in a room stalked by stealthy mice!

As the apex predator, I’ve suddenly been reduced to cowering under my blankets at the hands of something the size of my toe. I opt to sleep with the lamp on in the hopes of being able to easily spot any nighttime intruders who might consider trying to access my island. It was a bit of a restless night, but I survived unscathed. Maybe the guy with the tent wasn’t so crazy after all. What would have been worse, a 100% chance of mice or a 10% chance of bears?

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Recipe: 

Alder Smoked Salmon:

• Fillets of salmon or Tutshi trout
• Pink salt
• Alder wood

    Lightly salt the fish and allow it to stand for thirty minutes while the smoker heats up. Add dry wood chips or rounds from a young Alder tree or limb, and allow them to smoke over medium heat for four hours.


Highbush Cranberry & Rosehip Medicine:

• 1 Handful of Highbush cranberries
• 1 Handful of Rosehips
• 8 Cups of pure Yukon well or river water

    Ensure the berries and rosehips are harvested after the first frost. Wash them and add to the water. Let boil over an open fire for thirty minutes to three hours. Mash the mix if you need to speed up the process. Drink and enjoy!


Moose Stew:

• 2lbs cubed moose meat. 
• 2lbs cubed Yukon gold potatoes
• 1 Medium turnip
• 3 Celery stalks
• 1 Medium onion
• Salt & pepper

Cut the moose into chunks about 2” in size,  sprinkled with salt & pepper, and brown in a frying pan. Searing all sides to lock in the flavor.
 In the slow cooker, add a bit of water, the seared moose, diced celery, and diced onions. Leave the mix to simmer for 2-3 hours.
 Next, add cubed Yukon gold potatoes along with cubed turnips from the garden. Let the mix simmer for an hour. Then add in mini garden carrots, season to taste, and let simmer until the carrots soften.



Yukon Bannock:

• 2 Cups Flour
• 2 TSP baking powder
• 2 TSP salt
• Water
• Lard, Oil, or Animal Fat

    Mix all dry ingredients together first, then slowly add warm water and lightly mix to something a bit thicker than pancake mix, but not as thick as bread dough. The result should be a chunky blend, not smooth.

    Add the lard, oil, or animal fat to a pan, bring the temperature up to the point where if you sprinkle it with oil, it will splatter. Fry tennis ball-sized lumps until golden brown on both sides. 

    Serve with homemade preserves around a campfire over tales from the past and enjoy!