North of Town: Land of the rising bun

In North of Town, Peak contributor, author and CBC journalist Grant Lawrence profiles the lives and livelihoods of those who have chosen life at or beyond the end of Highway 101.

When you enter its swinging glass doors, the first thing you notice is the hustle and bustle of staff in the open-air kitchen behind the counter. Then it’s the warm and inviting aroma of fresh baking that tingles your nose and teases your taste buds: cookies, breads, focaccia, pizzas and pies, and of course, those giant, world-famous cinnamon buns. Yes, you’re in Nancy’s Bakery. 

Located in Lund, BC, otherwise known as Klah ah men in the Tla’amin Territory, the landmark bakery celebrates its 30th anniversary this month.

Back in the 1980s, Lund was a very different place, the rough ‘n’ tumble dead end of Highway 101, where fishers and clam diggers, hippies and draft dodgers, loggers and old timers would come together in the Lund Pub, a melting pot beyond the margins, which would sometimes boil over.

In 1990, Nancy Layton, a young, single mother of two young children, arrived in Lund after spending five years caretaking on nearby Hernando Island. She soon found herself working five jobs at once to make ends meet.

“I was a teacher’s assistant at the Lund school, I ran Carver’s Coffee Shop [now the Boardwalk Restaurant], I unloaded prawn boats, cleaned houses, scrubbed yachts, and worked at a small bakery in Powell River,” said Nancy. “Back in those days, Finn Bay Road in Lund was all single moms trying to figure out ways to get by. Many of us started our own businesses out of necessity. Lou Stevens made candles, Pretty Patty made soap, and I approached the Lund Hotel about starting a bakery in their basement.”

Location one

Lund Hotel owners at the time were agreeable to the idea, and allowed Nancy to set up in a tiny room directly under the noisy pub. The owners loaned Nancy what she described as an “ancient oven.” 

Nancy’s Bakery, location 1, officially opened its doors in June of 1991. It was hopping from the get-go.

Within a month, Nancy was working 15 hours days, seven days a week, and she kept it up until Labour Day. She eventually hired a nanny to help with her kids, but still remembers her daughter Amy sleeping on the flour bags, waiting for her mom to finish for the day.

“Cinnamon buns were instantly the best-seller,” recalled Nancy. She had baked those for the shareholders during her time on Hernando, but for the bakery, she quickly expanded to pizzas, cookies and pies.

“Basically, anything anyone requested – even ice cream,” she added. “What I remember most about that first location was that the afternoon sun beamed directly through the front glass door to create intense heat, and there was only a small window for ventilation.”

At the end of each day, Nancy would faithfully turn over her hard-earned take to the Lund hotel owners with the understanding that she would receive a percentage of her earnings at the end of the season. You can imagine her shock when the owners had nothing to give her at summer’s end.

“They said they couldn’t afford to pay me, even though the bakery had basically funded their operation,” said Nancy. “I asked for the oven as payment and the following summer I insisted on paying rent.”

Nancy’s brother-in-law soon became her first night baker, and local Lund artist Donna Huber also helped. Nancy fondly remembers she and Donna often laughing hysterically, triggered from pure exhaustion.

Location two

Two summers under the Lund Pub was enough for Nancy. Together with a few friends, and her then-boyfriend Ben Bouchard (who she had met on his first day in Lund in 1991), they carried Nancy’s “ancient” oven out from under the hotel and into an above-ground location next to the water taxi office on Lund’s main wharf. 

Nancy’s Bakery, location 2, officially opened in the summer of 1993.

“The little bit of extra room was great, but there was only space for one indoor table; outside, we created a nice little patio with lots of flowers, and we were busier than ever,” said Nancy.

She hired another night baker, and a person to work the front counter, and for the first time, the bakery stayed open into the fall.

In the summer of 1994, Nancy married Ben in a small ceremony in the archipelago north of Lund, locally known as the Ragged Islands (officially Copeland Islands Marine Provincial Park). She became Nancy Bouchard.

That second location with the little picket fence and front lawn would be headquarters for Nancy’s Bakery for the next decade. Epic lineups were common in the summer months, what with Savary Island folks unloading their supplies for the water taxi just steps away.

Some of those summers in the mid-1990s were so hot inside Nancy’s Bakery 2.0, it felt like a hive in more ways than one: wasps, seemingly by the thousands, were just as attracted to Nancy’s famous cinnamon buns as the Savary W.A.S.P.S., but the little ones with the stingers gorged without lining up or paying.

“I remember calling the exterminator and being told the wasps could smell my cinnamon buns from miles away,” mused Nancy.

Location three

After creating an incredible buzz as the “Cinnamama from Lund, Land of the Rising Bun,” a rare opportunity arose to purchase waterfront commercial real estate a few hundred feet from her cramped, rented bakery.

Nancy’s friends Ed and Julia Levy helped financially, and Ben, a musician, carpenter and builder, constructed the current building on the waterfront overlooking the harbour. 

Nancy’s Bakery, location 3, officially opened in 2004.

“I remember locals being quite negative about my move from ‘Central Lund’ to our current location,” chuckled Nancy. “One said to me ‘do you really think people are going to walk all the way over there just for a cinnamon bun?”

In 2007, a young Dutch woman named Christy Krebber showed up in Lund with her husband John Hermsen, hoping to start a kayak touring company. While they were getting their business afloat (Footprint Kayak, still afloat), Krebber looked for other employment and walked into Nancy’s Bakery. She has never left.

“I was looking for a job in a fun environment to get to know some people and improve my English,” explained Krebber. “I consider myself lucky to have found this job back then. Lund is simply a wonderful place to be.

“The bakery is an icon for Lund and gives customers a real Lund experience. We have the best view in town, and I love the interaction with the customers.”

Krebber is the bakery’s longest-standing employee at 14 years straight, and is now the manager.

“She’s the real boss,” Nancy quipped, fondly.

Krebber’s loyalty and knowledge of the day-to-day workings proved invaluable in 2017, when news rocked Lund that Nancy had been diagnosed with breast cancer. While recovering from that and other serious side effects at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, Nancy missed her first summer at the bakery in 25 years. Krebber and Nancy’s other employees stepped up to keep the bakery humming. Learning that Nancy was ill, a former cook returned from Nova Scotia to pick up the apron again.

“They all really came together that summer,” recalled Nancy.

Over the span of an incredible 30 years, Nancy has employed so many people she now hires the offspring of her former employees. Celebrities have discovered the bakery over the years, too: Michael Buble, Colin James and Sandra Oh have all popped in. The bakery is now open year round.

And yes, it’s been proven countless times that not only will hungry folks cross the Lund parking lot for a cinnamon bun, but people will also travel for many kilometres to swarm Nancy’s Bakery, just like those hungry wasps once did.

Grant Lawrence is an award-winning author, columnist and radio host who considers Powell River and Desolation Sound his second home.