Quesadillas in the Sub-Arctic

I’m no Mexican food addict, but I am perpetually fascinated by incongruous culinary offerings in unlikely locales—so when I spotted Sanchez Cantina, “Yukon’s Only TRUE Mexican Restaurant,” not long after my arrival in Whitehorse, I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist. Once several locals had assured me that it was “really good,” I grew even more curious—after all, I was in the Canadian sub-arctic, more than 3,000 miles north of the Mexican border, in a town of 20,000 where many people keep freezers full of moose meat. How “true” or “good” could it be?

Since my Mexican food experience is largely limited to San Francisco burritos, Chipotle lunch stops and an Acapulco hotel buffet eight years ago, I recruited a Mexican traveler who was also staying at the local hostel, a kayaking guide from southern Baja, to help find out. Like me, he was skeptical at first—but before we’d even entered the restaurant, he started changing his tune. “Jarritos!” he exclaimed when we were still 15 feet from the door—he’d spotted someone drinking a bottle of the popular Mexican soft drink on the patio. The next surprise was the cactus salad on the menu; “How do they get cactus up here?” Ramon wondered. We settled in, feeling increasingly confident about the impending meal’s quality, if not its carbon footprint.

An hour later, we were stuffed full of chiles rellenos, a chicken quesadilla, Pacifico beer and heaps of rice and beans that my Mexican friend declared to be “just like my mother makes.” He chatted happily in Spanish with the owner-operators, a family from Veracruz, while I tried to digest the fact that I’d probably just had the first “true” Mexican meal of my life—in Whitehorse, of all places.

The moral of the story? When you think you know what to expect from a place, the world has a funny and often wonderful way of proving you wrong. Oh, and also? All you Mexican food lovers far removed from Mexico: Don’t give up hope just yet.

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