We believe that some of the most important aspects of a kayaking tour naturally include the kayaking itself, the wildlife, and the wilderness experience. However, we also know that these experiences are more enjoyable when accompanied by good food. At Kingfisher we serve hearty, healthy, and tasty meals. We are also happy to cater to a wide variety of dietary preferences and restrictions. Furthermore, we believe that our food is good because when planning and purchasing our menu we are striving to choose environmental and ethical options, which includes growing our own, buying local, reducing packaging waste, and choosing fair trade and organic when possible.
Picking raspberries to top our base camp cheesecakes
Meat, Eggs, and Dairy
We serve wild, BC-caught salmon and halibut, buying it straight from local boats when available. All seafood purchased meets the Vancouver Aquarium’s Oceanwise standards.
New for 2015, we have committed to serving locally-produced meat. We will be sourcing pork breakfast sausages and chicken from The Butcher’s Block in the Comox Valley. The pork is Vancouver Island-produced and the chicken is either island-produced or from the Fraser Valley on the lower mainland. The meat is custom-packaged for us, as we have specifically requested no use of Styrofoam.
Also new this year, we will be purchasing locally-produced eggs from small Port McNeill area farmers.
Vancouver Island-produced fresh milk and cream are purchased locally. Other dairy products are Canadian-produced.
Zucchinis and cucumbers grown organically in our own garden
Produce
In 2014 we organically grew our own mint, dill, zucchini, and cucumbers. Vermi-compost, much of it produced from our base camp food waste, was used to fertilize our crops. From time to time during the season we also served Comox Valley-grown raspberries, plums, and apples picked by Kingfisher staff. Our goals for 2015 include growing more vegetables ourselves as well as purchasing more local produce. We aim to rely on produce in a more seasonal manner, for example, using local rhubarb, plums, and apples as each comes into season for our fruit crumble dessert.
Our current garden space is limited but we seek to expand it within the next year or two, which will enable us to offer a much larger amount of homegrown produce.
Other
We serve Level Ground Trading fair trade, organic coffee that is roasted here on Vancouver Island. We serve Tetley Orange Pekoe tea, which is Rainforest Alliance certified. This season we are moving to Four O’Clock specialty and herbal teas, which are certified Fairtrade and organic teas from a Canadian company. New this year we will also be serving Camino fair trade organic hot chocolate (another Canadian company), and we are committed to increasing our purchase of fair trade chocolate bars to 100%.
We are increasing our in-house production of baked goods, such as cookies and bars, and reducing the purchase of prepackaged cookies which will reduce packaging waste.