West Ferris Royal Canadian Legion back to cooking popular meat pies

A 40-year tradition of making meat pies has returned to the West Ferris Legion in North Bay. Volunteers and members spend many hours making the Legion’s famous non-garlic, garlic, and extra garlic meat pies.

"We make 252 pies, each bake on Monday and Wednesday, when we are finished we will have over 5,000," said Lea Bale, a volunteer at the Legion.

"I think people enjoy our pies. Nobody seems to make a recipe as nice and as good as ours. They say they're so delicious, they're back every year for more.”

Several volunteers are part of the process. Anywhere from 10 to 15 are in the kitchen at once starting at 5 a.m. and the last leave around 3 p.m.

"When I found out about the pies, I thought it would be wonderful to spend some time volunteering,” said volunteer Ana Post.

“The group of people have just been wonderful. It's been so nice to be out and around with people … For me, I don't show up until about 9 o'clock and most of my time consists of boxing and moving the pies and helping them cool."

The hope is that the Legion will make $55,000 this year in pie sales, which will go towards keeping the doors open.

"It helps to keep the Legion open, there's many expensive things like heat, hydro and repairs,” said Bale.

“We have had our bad years, when there's more expenses than what we're taking in, but we always manage to keep us open.”

Legion officials told CTV News pies will be made until the first week of December, but are encouraging people to place orders soon as pies are selling fast.