A series: The BEST CHEFS in the Canadian West and a haunted hotel

I promised to begin more chicken recipes, but I thought readers would enjoy reading some bios of professionals in the field. In 2009, I did a motorcycle tour out west, all the way to Tofino on Vancouver Island, one long tour! As I traveled west, I stayed at top notch hotels, the Deltas, the Fairmonts, the best in the west. In Saskatoon, yes, they have an outstanding hotel with a great chef and a very sharp manager. The hotel was the Bessborough, locally referred to as "The Bess." (bez).

The DELTA Bess

Let me begin this series with a blurb about The Bess.

The Bess was the Crown in the hotel chain of the Canadian National Railway. The Canadian Pacific had the Royal York in Toronto and CN needed something of the same. Designed by Archibald Schofield, a Montrealer,  whose insipiration for the hotel's design was a Bavarian castle. Incredibly, the hotel was built during the Depression era with construction started in 1930 in February, the coldest time of the year, dead of winter, in Saskatoon, no less. Using equipment modified to work in the extreme cold and with property tax exemptions granted by the city to encourage the hotel's construction, Overcoming numerous hurdles besides the weather and the economic times, the hotel construction was completed in 1935 and it was dedicated to Sir  Vere Ponsonby, 9th Earl of Bessborough and the 14th Governor General of Canada.

Through the 1970's - 1990's, ownership of the hotel and CN Railroad changed hands and hotel management changed also. Today, the Bess is a DELTA hotel, accommodating guests in its 225 rooms, catering weddings and banquets in its beautiful historic dining halls, and hosting rock festivals and garden parties in its beautifully landscaped setting behind the hotel on the shores of the Saskatchewan River. When I was there, I saw a wedding and attended a rock festival. The rock festival was more fun, though the groom at the wedding likely would disagree.

The Bess is a haunted hotel, Albert, a butler type hotel employee, stalks the hotel sporadically after the midnight hour. I was too tired my nights there to stay up and look for him though some staff assured me, he was very visible if you stayed up long enough and knew where his apparition would appear. I was too full of other spirits to stay up long enough to encounater Albert !

Chef Ryan Marquis is the Executive Chef of the Bess, and I was very lucky to not just dine on his food, but to be his personal guest at one dinner and a downtown tour of another hotel, and the local city market. But that will be another blog!

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