It’s a cold, crisp day in Prince Rupert, but inside the Saltwater Bakery, winter sunlight and the smell of freshly baked pastries fill the space with warmth.
A steady stream of people drifts in and out, picking up artisanal bread or a mid-morning treat, such as one of the bakery’s famous pain au chocolat. It’s the quiet season, when the business relies on its local customer base, and manager Nicole Gordon takes time to chat with the regulars.
“Our bread and butter is the local community,” Gordon says without a hint of irony.
The bakery was opened two summers ago by Gitxaała Enterprises Corp., the economic branch of the Gitxaała Nation.
Its name refers, of course, to two of the three ingredients in bread: salt and water. But it’s also a reference to the Gitxaała people.
Known as Git Lax M’oon — “people of the saltwater” — nation members have inhabited Lax Klan, the village site 60 kilometres south of Prince Rupert that is also known as Kitkatla, for about 16,000 years.
“Gitxaała invested in the bakery to create more job opportunities for our people and bring fresh, locally made baking to the community,” Gitxaała Nation Elected Chief Councillor Lou Ga Gwelks (Linda Innes) says.
“It’s about building a stronger, more self-sufficient future while offering something everyone can enjoy.”
Saltwater Bakery, which employs three baker trainees and four front-end staff, is a reflection of Gitxaała’s holistic approach to economic development and community wellness, says Gitxaała Enterprises communications director Mary Denton. The bakery provides jobs and training, while also supporting other small businesses and contributing to the growing number of tourism amenities that make Prince Rupert a popular visitor destination.
“Gitxaała Enterprises is very visionary in where they want to invest to get better quality of life here,” Denton says. “To keep the tourism going, you need to have things for the tourists to do.”
Gitxaała Enterprises has steadily expanded its business initiatives in the region. In addition to running environmental, construction and forestry operations, it owns a local building supply store.
The bakery came about in 2022, after the nation bought a vacant building next to the building supply store in Prince Rupert’s Cow Bay neighbourhood, which is popular for its shopping and restaurants. They realized the need for a source of healthy fresh-baked goods.
Saltwater opened the following year, in summer 2023, the same year Gitxaała Enterprises bought Prince Rupert’s Crest Hotel. Located just up the hill from Cow Bay on a perch overlooking the harbour, the hotel and bakery enjoy a certain synergy, Denton says — the café sells Saltwater’s baked goods and the hotel promotes the bakery to its guests.
Cow Bay is a bustling place in summer; it’s where dozens of cruise ships dock over the tourism season, each one depositing hundreds of passengers into the tiny tourist enclave.
Prince Rupert, which is also a jumping-off point for popular ferry routes like Haida Gwaii and the Inside Passage, also attracts a fair bit of regional tourism. Denton believes the northern city — which is also the wettest place in Canada — will become increasingly popular as wildfires become more common in B.C. due to climate change.
Visitors are happy to support a First Nations-owned business and Saltwater strives to provide an experience that’s authentic, Denton says.
On the walls facing the bakery counter, shelves lined with locally made goods include Gitxaała author Kim Spencer’s latest book, Ts’msyen-owned Haas Honey products, and greens from a Nisga’a-owned garden centre just down the road at Seal Cove.
The shop also sells goods from across B.C. and Canada, such as salal berry jelly from Vancouver Island and maple syrup from Quebec — a big hit with the cruising crowd. The bakery also makes its own ice cream, with flavours labelled in Smal’gax, the Gitxaała language, like Nisk (raspberry) and Maguul (strawberry).
Soon, the bakery hopes to incorporate more seasonal specialities, such as spruce tip ice cream, and baked goods with foraged berries, or, on the savoury side, seaweed.
They’re in the process of navigating the necessary but complex health regulations around harvesting, Gordon says.
The Gitxaała Nation’s hunch that the residents of Prince Rupert had a hankering for freshly baked goods has proven accurate. The waves of international cruise ship passengers that flood Cow Bay every summer amount to a small portion of overall sales, Gordon says.
Throughout the year, the bakery produces about 300 loaves of bread and another 1,000 pastries, cookies and bars every week. None of it goes to waste.
“In the very beginning, they were known as the one-hour bakery because they could not keep up with the demand,” Denton says.
Today, a handful of loaves remain on a shelf as day-olds. Any that don’t sell will be donated to local community groups. The bakery also provides bread at a wholesale discount for the local school lunch program, Gordon says.
Among the bakery’s year-round customers are Gitxaała Nation members who take the two-hour ferry trip to Prince Rupert and shop at Saltwater Bakery with a sense of pride, Denton says.
It’s unique for a First Nation to invest in the service industry, Denton says. But Gitxaała’s businesses don’t just offer simple employment — they provide training opportunities and contribute to overall community wellbeing.
“If it helps [reduce] barriers, gets something on your resume and gets you comfortable working with the public, absolutely, that’s a huge success story for us,” Denton says.
