From the rugged mountains of Vermont to the pristine shores of the Bay of Fundy and the Highest Tides in the World, Skip Wolf knew what he wanted, and what he wanted was salt water at his doorstep. So, along with his wife Karen, he moved north, to New Brunswick and found Stump Cove on the Letang Estuary, with its red and rocky cliffs and view of the bay. That was 34 years ago and the Wolfs haven’t looked back.
“It was different here then,” says Karen. “We lived at the end of a long dirt road, but we loved it, and decided to make something out of what we had found.” At first Skip taught school, but then he heard that people were thinking of trying salmon farming in the Bay of Fundy. In 1981 Skip and Karen became one of the first producers of farmed salmon in North America. They quickly gained a reputation for quality, and soon their salmon was showing up in restaurants as far away as Montreal, Toronto and south into the United States.
They began smoking salmon in 1985 and by 1998 had left the salmon-farming business altogether to concentrate on their new enterprise, Wolfhead Smokers. Using traditional Scottish methods, they produce both hot- and cold-smoked salmon from the freshest of fish. “All of our salmon comes from within three kilometers of here,” says Skip. Both types are smoked over maple woodchips, but hot-smoked salmon gets sprinkled with black pepper and then the meat is actually cooked using higher temperatures.
Which one do they like best? Karen says, in a very diplomatic manner and with a twinkling smile, “Hot smoked for beer and cold smoked for champagne and white wine.” One thing for sure, it is all good, as chefs from nearby St. Andrews will happily tell you. Many travellers arrive at Stump Cove after being directed to Wolfhead Smokers by way of a beaming chef. Thus, their reputation is spreading far and wide.
Friends of theirs were walking along a beach in the Baja one night and stopped to talk to another couple. As travelers do, they started trading stories and talking about places they had visited. The Wolfs' friends were more than a little surprised to hear that the couple they were talking to had recently been up to New Brunswick and had just visited Wolfhead Smokers!
You can take a virtual tour of Wolfhead Smokers on the Web, but you are welcome to drop by for a chat as well. “I love meeting people and developing long-term relationships with customers,” says Karen, and although Skip agrees, it might just be the taste of the salmon that makes practicing their craft so enjoyable, as he slices off another sliver of salmon – that, and the fact that they can launch their wooden sailing dory at a moment’s notice . . . life on a saltwater bay, the dream from which a life was made.
Skip and Karen Wolf
Wolfhead Smokers Ltd.
420 Route 172
Letang
506-755-1203 or 1-877-965-3432
www.wolfheadsmokers.com