Shoreline Chowder
Recipe provided by Jade Berg of Wild Isle.
Jade Berg
Foraging and feasting in the wilds of British Columbia
Disney+’s show Chef vs. Wild featured Jade Berg out in the wilds of coastal British Columbia competing against another world-class chef to cook a winning five-star meal (and survive) from only foraged ingredients. Despite initially suspecting the Instagram message from producers a scam (as it came amid a cooking career hiatus with no end date, due to an injury in 2018), his time on the show became transformational—a reflection of his passion for seasonal and uncultivated ingredients, and the catalyst for his business Wild Isle (wildislecooking.com).
A curious cook
Berg grew up in Southern Alberta, and he remembers the day-long drive to his grandfather’s Saskatoon cabin. It was a trip he looked forward to all year, and the location of some of his first memories of wild foods, where his grandfather taught him how to fish and hunt. It fostered an ethos of deep connection to land and has stuck with Berg since. “Everything for me is about connection—family, food, the land around us—it’s the biggest part of what I do.”
Berg began his culinary career when a friend suggested they chef together at a local hotel. Berg loved the atmosphere—“the camaraderie of the kitchen, there were pranks—they lit me on fire once!”. But after the recession hit in 2008, the West Coast beckoned with rich memories of visits to Haida Gwaii and Prince Rupert at ages 12 and 14, admiring colourful houses on the water, sighting whales from the ferry, combing the beach for sea glass and other treasures. At age 18, with just $100 in his pocket, no home and no job, Berg told his parents he was “moving to Vancouver at the end of the week.”
The first two nights in Vancouver, Berg slept on a park bench. A job at a tailors, on top of an eight-hour shift at one restaurant and 12 hours at another, was exchanged for paying off a suit for job interviews. A grueling, less-than-romantic start to big city life. But there’s a deep, unwavering determination in Berg matched with a curiosity to seek more from life.
Chef vs. Wild
It’s part of what led him to move to Vancouver Island—seeking something greener and richer for his partner and their first child, starting with a stint at Strathcona Park Lodge, and going on to work at a myriad of the Islands’ smaller lodges and private residences. And it’s this attitude that no doubt got him through Chef vs. Wild’s taxing conditions. “What a lot of people don’t realize on the show is that I was having to decide whether to use ingredients we found in the dish or eat them myself—we were surviving on something like 100 calories a day.” He subsisted on and cooked with ingredients like mushrooms, seaweed, reindeer moss, liquorice fern, hemlock needles and wild yarrow.
But the positives outweighed the harsh conditions. On the tail end of a self-identity crisis sparked by the injury that folded into the pandemic and depression, he found the show to be transformative. “[It was] the first time in years that I felt alive. It was so miserable, but I could feel all the good and the bad. And I just thought, if I can make it through this…”
The Wild Isle
Alongside hunting trips with his children, the show was the catalyst for a renewed sense of passion and reevaluation of his connection to wild places and foraged foods. “I came home, got a new business license, and jumped in in June 2022. I realized all these places I’d been camping for years, I’d never really looked down to see all these wild foods.” For Berg, “Food is about an experience—a universal language.” A belief that has led him to focus more on education since: “I want to introduce people to these ingredients, keep it intentional and simple—you don’t need all the fancy things, just your hands and the ability to be creative.”
Wild Isle originally focused on cooking classes. But Berg is adding foraging courses and wanting to bridge the gap between hunting and cheffing. “I want to elevate what’s all around us, offer an opportunity for more food security and a reason to preserve the environment. People need to find a reason to care, to feel connected, and nature as a food source is one way I can encourage that.”
Berg continues to guide folks on wild food adventures and also chefs privately in Canada and overseas. An enriching life in the wild that is rooted in his purpose of food and connection. “If I can make a living walking in the woods, inspiring others? I’m so game.”
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