Hey there! We would like to invite you for dinner!
Sounds great – when would you like to go?
What are you doing in March?
Um, I don’t know? That’s pretty far in advance.
Well, this place is pretty spectacular and reservations fill up fast.
Sure, I can mark it on my calendar so I don’t book anything else that day – when is it?
Well, that’s the thing. It’s Monday, March 5th, but you won’t be home until the 6th.
I’ve never heard of dinner taking two days…
It’s actually 1000 km North of Winnipeg. I have already made you a plane reservation on CalmAir.
I am intrigued. A thousand km north of Winnipeg? Like Churchill?
Yes, but dinner is not actually in Churchill.
We have to go somewhere else?
Yes, a tundra buggy is going to come and pick us up and head out of town.
Cool so we are going to eat sandwiches in a tundra buggy.
No, in a tent.
What? A tent – isn’t the temperature about -20C?
It’s about -21C today, but the tent will be warm because it’s inside a massive 250-year stone fort.
So let me get all this straight. We are having dinner – in a tent – inside a fort – reached by a truck called a Tundra Buggy – after taking a 2-hour flight north from Winnipeg. Anything else I should know?
Oh, the tent is clear so we can watch the Northern Lights dance across the sky, in a location that NASA says is the best on the planet.
This is an amazing surprise. Do I even ask what is for dinner?
Actually, it’s a surprise. Chef Mandel Hitzer, from the celebrated Winnipeg restaurant Raw: Almond, will prepare a dinner inspired by the type of ingredients that explorers, adventurers and First Nations folks would have used in their meals 250 years ago while at the Prince of Wales Fort.
Ok! I’m fired up and ready to go!
One last thing: don’t wear heels.
When you think of Northern Lights something mysterious and wondrous comes to mind.
