Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Meeting Local Celebrities

Among my BC-travel highlights are the times I have had the privilege of meeting people who I think are pretty neat. Of course family and friends rank at the very top of my neat-people list! But there are some additional folks that have touched my life that I'd love to mention here, in the name of blog-updating and British-Columbia-life-sharing.  

For years I have been honoured to meet, travel, and work with many of our absolute stars in melanoma skin cancer treatment in Canada, namely from Toronto, Edmonton, Victoria, and Vancouver. Last year I even got to pop down to the Okanagan to have a SYSF dinner with a number of our treating Dermatologists, Oncologists and Surgeons in the area. As always, it was humbling and inspiring at the same time: learning on behalf of skin cancer patients, and speaking on behalf of skin cancer patients. 

In addition to these meaningful exchanges, I have had the fun of meeting up with local celebrities that are on TV. And yes, I do count medical-educational webinars and recorded zoom meetings that are online as valuable viewing material! 

But in this case I'm referring to celebrities on Netflix, History channel, CTV, Prime, Discovery, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc etc etc - you get the idea. Sheer fun!

Let's start with Mike Hall from Rust Bros, in the Shuswap area. I've watched every episode of his show, laughing out loud at all the casts' antics, and learning a lot about cool car restorations at the invitation of my boyfriend Mike. Mike first got to meet Mike on a boys' trip a couple years ago, when he stumbled upon the Rust Valley Restorers shop/property/set and decided to pop in. As (my) Mike always says, just try... "nothing bad is going to happen" - they drove in, and were respectfully checking out the place when the boss came out and hung out to look at their cars and chat.

So when we were with family in the area last summer and went out on some exploring, Mike said hey let's stop in - maybe you can meet Mike too! And so we did. He was so gracious, obviously busy but still stopped to chat with us and take a photo. So cool, very fun!

A second local celebrity honourable mention goes here, to Avery from Rust Bros, and Wildman Restorations. Little did we know, when we were in the Shuswap we drove right by Avery's place several times - and we didn't know it until this past season when we watched on TV and saw the road! Didn't get to meet Avery, but if you watch the show you'd know he goes with Mike Hall, two peas in a pod if you ask me. 😂

Click photo for creds

Shifting gears... ha ha ha...

As I've mentioned before, since I've moved here I've learned a lot about gold mining, minerals, the environment, and the terrain in northern BC. Mike and I dabble in gold panning and have plans for more next season. But in the winters when we can't be out on the land, we occasionally watch TV. And guess what's on there - Gold Rush! Yes, I am completely hooked. But alongside Gold Rush are the likes of The Curse of Oak Island and Jade Fever. Ok no we haven't met the Lagina brothers or Parker Schnabel (though last season he did visit Barkerville!), BUT - Jade Fever! - Claudia Bunce! 

In my last post I talked about our visit to Jade City on the Yukon loop. The one thing I didn't mention is that Claudia was actually there, at the Jade City store when we stopped in. I didn't think she would be there, as it was the start of summer, and one would suspect they have to make the most of their time on the land up north in the short summer season. But lucky us - she was at home! I wasn't cool calm collected enough to ask her for a photo, so you'll have to see her in this one (and at the links below).

Click photo for creds

Just hangin' out all cool and prosperous in her jade store, as welcoming as if we had been invited to Thanksgiving dinner. Instantly we sensed her intelligence and business acumen, she was open and totally friendly, and absolutely not shy about her jade mining family history, business success, and current work as well as future plan speculation. 

She chatted with Mike while I (gaped and) shopped (quickly) - Claudia even said to Mike "Wow you are a Champ for letting her stop here to shop even with your hurt arm!"  A Champ! Well yes of course Mike is a Champ, but now it gets a capital C because Claudia said it too. She also referred to another shop she is/was working on, closer to us, but you'll have to wait to hear more about that one in a future post.  Claudia and her family happen to be from Prince George, so that bought me time to shop while Mike chatted. We have actually seen her at Costco since then too but without picture proof I feel like I can't say that 😅



https://jadecity.com/

https://www.ctv.ca/shows/jade-fever

And I will close with a couple more honourable mentions for Jade Fever.  On the day of the 2021 Father's Day Show n Shine fancy car tour here in PG, we saw Claudia's nephew Shane, to the very right in the crew photo above. I saw him and (so elegantly) exclaimed (from the window of Mike's Camaro) Oh wow it's Shane from Jade Fever!! and he smiled and waved. Yep, totally cool. 

Also Scrappy Larry, in the middle of the Jade Fever crew photo above. Scrappy Larry is a side-story in the Jade Fever show, and a captivating one at that! We love Scrappy Larry, have spotted him in PG as well, and we are thrilled that he now has his own website even. 

He is funny, sweet, genuine, and he loves cookies. We had brought a freshly baked care package of cookies for Scrappy Larry when we were planning to visit Cassiar and find him on our Yukon trip, but when we had to cancel that part of our trip we missed the chance to deliver to him. In any case, we'll keep trying!

So that's it for my BC celebrity update at the moment, but stay tuned... hangin' out with Mr. Nothing-Bad-is-Gonna-Happen you never know what  - or WHO - we might encounter next! 

Ryan Reynolds is from Vancouver after all..... 

😈

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