Ginger Auger, Ginger's Bannock House. Facebook image
FORT MCMURRAY — Ginger Auger is back in Fort McMurray after taking her Indigenous food and storytelling to one of the country’s best-known cultural institutions as a resident chef at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.
Auger, a Métis/Cree iskwew and founder of Ginger’s Bannock House, was selected as one of the chefs featured in the 2026 Resident Chef program at 1 Elgin, the restaurant inside the National Arts Centre.
Her residency included a Chef’s Table weekend series in September, with a menu built around the Indigenous fusion cooking and storytelling that have become central to her work. Her dishes will remain on the 1 Elgin menu until early November.
The National Arts Centre describes Auger as the founder and CEO of Ginger’s Bannock House, an Indigenous catering company in Fort McMurray specializing in Indigenous fusion food and story.
The NAC says Auger began cooking with her mother when she was six years old and that her experiences with poverty, homelessness, addiction and healing became part of the story behind her business.
It also says Ginger’s Bannock House employs primarily Indigenous people who are on paths of recovery, healing or greater independence, or who are overcoming trauma.
Friends describe Auger as someone who has increasingly used food, public speaking and storytelling to encourage others in recovery and to give back to the community.
That combination of food and story is also what she brought to Ottawa.
The National Arts Centre describes itself as Canada’s bilingual, multidisciplinary home for the performing arts, with programming spanning music, theatre, dance and Indigenous arts.
Its 1 Elgin Resident Chef program brings culinary artists from across the country to work with the restaurant’s team and develop menus reflecting their backgrounds and creative approaches.
The 2026 program was its seventh season, with Auger chosen as its fourth and final resident chef of the year.
Her selection placed a Fort McMurray Indigenous business in front of a national audience.
The NAC says Auger’s broader work is focused on food security, culture, reconciliation and story, while continuing to give back through volunteering and food donations.
Ginger’s Bannock House has also received a number of business and community honours in recent years, including local and provincial Indigenous business awards.
For Auger, the residency represented an opportunity to bring the food, stories and experiences behind Ginger’s Bannock House to Ottawa. In social media posts reflecting on the experience, she described the residency as another chapter in a journey that began in Fort McMurray.
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