When the idea of filming a segment on the Sunshine Coast for her TV series CARPe diem was suggested, host Carmen Ruiz y Laza needed no coaxing.
“As a true British Columbian, I love to explore the area, but the thing that attracts me the most about the Sunshine Coast is the very short ferry ride. That was a weekend well spent,” said Ruiz y Laza. “And, it was fabulous, of course.”
Ruiz y Laza reiterates one of draws of the Coast, besides its natural beauty, is it’s proximity to the City of Vancouver, which she calls home. She notes, while that accessibility adds to the area’s appeal, as with any ferry-dependent area, there can be issues.
“You have to have a lot of patience with the ferry. That’s just the downside of it. But 40 minutes and you're in a whole different world,” said Ruiz y Laza. “When you go to the Coast, you really feel like you're away and there's lots of space and it's more rustic.”
Ruiz y Laza says she’d visited the Coast in the past and always enjoyed it, but never truly appreciated all it has to offer until this past visit.
“The older I get, the more I want to experience that feeling, that holistic, natural, what B.C used to be like before concrete took over, feeling,” says Ruiz y Laza. “That's really the fundamental reason why I wanted to go back to the Sunshine Coast and bring that to my Canadian viewers.”
Ruiz y Laza is able to do that through VisionTV, which airs her "CARPe diem" episodes across the country. The show also airs on JoyTV and FaithTV — all three shows are part of ZoomerMedia Limited.
Ruiz y Laza said the theme of this episode is a wellness weekend, with a second goal to show a visit to the Coast doesn’t have to be restricted to summer.
“It was October, the sun was out and I was using my sunscreen,” said Ruiz y Laza. “In the shoulder season, you can get into restaurants, you can get into the hotels, you can have the peace of the seawall and you can spend more time with the locals than with other tourists. As a zoomer or traveller, we typically have more liberty on when we travel and how and where, and so I strongly recommend shoulder seasons to everybody. And if it rains, so what?”
Ruiz y Laza started her weekend in Gibsons and, accompanied by a small crew, walked and filmed in and around the harbour before meeting with internationally renowned painter Marleen Vermeulen, to talk about her West Coast land and seascapes and the art scene on the Coast, which is also internationally renowned.
The crew then headed to Sechelt, where Ruiz y Laza strolled the waterfront with unofficial tourism ambassador Jack Pope, who filled her in on the heralded Sunshine Coast Art Crawl, which in October drew more than 38,000 visitors.
Ruiz y Laza also had an opportunity to participate in a Talking Trees Tour in Porpoise Bay with Candace Campo, co-owner of Talaysay Tours and shíshálh Nation member. Campo's ancestral name is xets’emits’a (to always be there). The Talking Trees nature walk offers an ethnobotany lesson exploring how the shíshálh and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh people used, and continue to use, the land for food, medicine and technology.
“You learn a lot and I believe that if you did that Talking Trees tour with Candace 20 times, you would learn something new because there's no way that you can learn everything that she can teach in a lifetime,” says Ruiz y Laza. “There are always opportunities to do it again and learn again, so I loved that."
Ruiz y Laza also had the opportunity to visit the spa at Painted Boat Resort in Madeira Park, accompanied by Canadian wellness expert Cheryl MacKinnon, who specializes in creating "accessible wellness to transformative travel experiences" through her website WellnessTravelBC.com.
Together they enjoyed spa treatments infused with mineral-rich seaweed and salts, and relaxed in the Serenity Garden. Nestled amongst towering conifers, the garden is a tranquil oasis with cascading waterfall, spacious hot tub, outdoor glacial rain shower, sauna, and warm salt-water floatation pool.
“A spa experience is important. When I travel, I insist on having a spa hotel. I want to live in my bathroom. I want to be able to go downstairs and get a treatment and enjoy a steam room, a sauna,” says Ruiz y Laza. “The Painted Boat was selected for me to visit because it stands out for all of that it offers in that regard. And it had a delicious restaurant with a very good wine list, which is important too.”
Ruiz y Laza and crew topped off their Coast weekend with visits to Egmont, Princess Louisa Marine Provincial Park and Chatterbox Falls.
And while Ruiz y Laza was enjoying spa time, her more adventurous producer Dean Atwal, enjoyed a guided Zodiac tour on the ocean with the new Egmont Adventure Centre, with a focus on “blue-water therapy.”
“Everything I need for a getaway is on the Sunshine Coast, plus I can drive. I don't need to hop on a plane to go. I've done those shoots as well,” says Ruiz y Laza. “And there’s the packing and what am I going to take and does it fit? With the Sunshine Coast, you can stick everything in your car and take off.”
The Sunshine Coast episode of CARPe diem airs on FaithTV, Dec. 28 at 10:30 a.m. The episode previously aired on JoyTV and VisionTV is still available at visiontv.ca/shows/carpe-diem.
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