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A sign on Tow Hill Road, about five kilometres after you leave the pavement, and well into Naikoon Provincial Park, says “Fresh Bread Ahead.” This is the only warning you’ll get that you are nearing Moon Over Naikoon, one of Haida Gwaii’s most beloved bakeries.

“You feel you're outside civilization, in a very ancient place,” one blogger writes. “Then you get to stop in a surreal little bakery right on the periphery of capitalism.”

The bakery is a huge success and in ways that have nothing to do with finances (The owner, Wendy Riley, quit making her coveted Chocolate Chip Shortbread  “because people kept buying it.”) It’s the place you’ll find tourists and residents alike, visiting and telling stories. “Come and sit with us,” pleaded a group of locals to a visitor who wandered in on a rainy June afternoon.  “We’re sick of each other, we’re dying to meet someone new.”

Everything in this off-the-grid bakery is made from scratch. There is no menu per se, just whatever Wendy and her crew of devoted helpers feel in the mood to bake. Pizza, muffins, delicious cookies and squares, and – the hottest commodity - cinnamon buns. And bread, of course, tasting fresher than the air, served with tea or coffee, by candlelight.

Moon Over Naikoon also sells locally made crafts, and books by Island authors. Ask Angela Long, who works in the bakery (open on weekends in the winter months but seven days a week in the summer) for her book of poetry, Observations from Off the Grid. Buy one and you might even get a free brownie.