[cheering & applause]
Two hours from vancouver,
Hope has long been considered the gateway to holidayland.
Last chance for gas between vancouver and the okanagan.
The trouble is,
Since the decline of the logging industry,
Many people think of it as something of a pit stop.
They get gas and use the bathroom,
And then they're on their way.
What are you guys up to today?
We are on our way to vancouver.
Stop through on the way to kelowna.
We stop here and let her grandson run around in the park.
But hope is an exciting place with roaring rivers and
Canyons and demolition derbies.
And then, there's all these incredible carvings you see
On the sidewalks done with chainsaws.
It's been the beautiful backdrop for movie magic.
They shot rambo here, for pete's sake!
[cheering & applause]
Hope is more than a gateway or a pit stop.
Hope is moving from the place to pee to the place to be.
[cheering & applause]
When you grow up in a small town in newfoundland,
You see the people have a sense of humor about hard times.
Check, check.
I turned that into a career and hit the road.
Mr. Jonny harris!
Now I'm on a mission to find it funny in the places you'd
Least expect - canada's struggling small towns.
Towns that are against the ropes,
But hanging in there.
Still laughing in the face of adversity.
This is hope, british columbia.
♪
[cheering & applause]
Hope is staggeringly gorgeous. There's so much to do here.
And "all roads lead to hope," they say.
There are four major highways, two rivers,
Two railways, two pipelines,
Bc's major transmission lines.
Everything seems to come in and out and flow through hope.
Some people say it is the heart of bc.
But instead of blood, you pump gas.
[laughing]
[applauding]
♪
Back in the economic heyday, logging was king,
And this was a transportation hub.
There was logs floating down your rivers.
There was an endless line of
Logging trucks on your highways.
But when the logging jobs got axed,
Many loggers were forced to branch out into other areas.
But I talked to one logger who stuck to his roots,
Ray of hope, ray zervini.
[cheering & applause]
Ray told me how for decades, hope's economy
Relied on logs more than the fireplace channel.
[laughing]
♪
Well, hope had a large sawmill just up the river from us.
And they were our largest employer.
But when the cuts started happening,
The mills started downsizing,
We started seeing less and less employment.
Ray said that when they closed the sawmill,
That resulted in about 400 layoffs.
And that for every job lost to a logger,
There were six jobs lost in supporting industries.
All the storefronts were full prior to the mill closure and,
Shortly after, businesses started closing down.
For instance, we had 14 service stations.
We had two sporting goods stores.
We had restaurants.
We had men's and women's clothing stores.
And young adults started moving elsewhere for work and
The town really felt it.
I don't want to say that the people of hope felt hopeless,
But hope felt less full of people.
The thing is nowadays here in hope,
It's not that there isn't infrastructure to welcome
More visitors here.
There's lovely cafes, a beautiful park.
There's 1500 motel rooms.
So, is the challenge now to get people to just, you know,
Spend more time here?
Yes, for a small town there is quite a few amenities.
And you know, people don't really see it
As they're zipping through.
Back in the day, this wasn't just
An industrial transportation hub.
It was the gateway to holidayland.
It used to say right there on the wooden signs
Over the highway.
"gateway to holidayland" was the theme at the time to,
You know, get people to come through hope.
But I think they realized that most of the people were just
Stopping for fuel and a sandwich and
Heading through again.
I think when they expanded the highway,
Those signs had to be taken down.
And I guess, cut up 'cause I saw one,
But it just says "gateway".
I think you kept the wrong word.
[laughing]
I think you should have kept "holidayland".
Make people think they're already here.
[laughing]
It's like, you wouldn't take that the old bc license plate
That said the, "best place on earth" and
Shorten it to just, "place on earth".
[laughing]
♪
Ray said when he was young, when he was a teenager,
He had a job pumping gas like a lot of guys did.
He was a logger for many years.
Now runs a chainsaw repair shop.
This guy, he's the full package.
And speaking of his package...
[laughing]
[laughing loudly]
Ray is also mr. Hope.
[cheering & applause]
But it was for a fundraiser.
Never defeated, never challenged.
They got a few prospective gentlemen from hope to
Bare all in front of a crowd of women.
[laughing] is that right?
He said by the end of it, he was wearing nothing
But a tiger print loincloth.
[laughing]
Which barely came down to here.
But listen, they raised a lot of money.
Luckily, that night, nobody was low balling.
[laughing & applauding]
From dirt bikers in the ditch, to capsize canoes,
To wind toppled tractor trailers on your highways...
This is no holidayland for the local search and rescue team.
I went and I had a chat with the president of the
Hope search and rescue, noelle hartt.
[cheering & applause]
I've met a lot of people on my travels,
And I finally found somebody who told me not to get lost.
[laughing]
We've been around since 1963.
And, we put a lot of effort in the last three years
To grow our team. We have 32 active members.
Typically during the day when there's a call for road rescue,
We have a core team of six or seven of us
That can make it.
Hope's search and rescue, or sar,
Their duties include many different facets,
From swift water rescue, to ground search and rescue,
But they're taken up predominantly by road rescues.
We have all the major highways that come through here.
We also have the coquihalla, which is...
One of the most infamous deadly highways in all of
North america, maybe the world.
"the coq", as locals call it.
The highway through hell.
It's known for twisty turns, steep canyons,
Over 1200 meters of elevation,
And extreme rapid changes in weather.
You might leave vancouver wearing flip flops and,
Head up the coquihalla and encounter a snowstorm
In the middle of June. It's a different world.
If you're not prepared or thinking about
High mountain travel,
You can be definitely caught off guard.
She said, you know, you get up that high,
You could get into trouble. That's what they say—
If you get too high on the coq,
You could be in trouble.
[laughing]
And then noelle and her team got to come get you
And then you're gonna feel twice as bad
When they're bringing you down.
That's what they say, it's even worse coming down off the coq.
[laughing]
It's about making sure you have your 24-hour pack with you,
So you can survive.
She said, "have some sort of emergency kit in your car.
Have some water, some food, some extra clothes".
That's very important.
I mean, even if you make it through,
You might end up wanting to change your underpants.
[laughing]
It's so scary on that highway, you don't need to
Crash your car to have an accident.
[laughing]
But hope search and rescue, you know,
They'll be there if something bad happens.
But more importantly, they want to help prevent
Bad things from happening.
A lot of what sar group's is about education and prevention.
Hopefully, the big thing that we want to see people doing is
Calling 9-1-1, rather than calling or texting their family
And friends saying, "I'm stuck. I need help,"
Or, "I think I'm lost".
And why is that?
Oh, you're using your battery up.
But we also have the opportunity to ping your phone,
If there's enough battery on it.
And zero in on your location with gps.
So, if you think you're lost and you've got your phone,
Don't do anything dumb like go on social media.
People have done it, okay. You know what I mean?
Taking a selfie.
"I think I'm lost in the mountains lol"
[laughing]
#no-filter #no-food-or-water
[laughing]
♪
Some of the guys on the crew were there and they
Showed me how to perform a standard car rescue.
I was in the car with matt.
And, I may have distracted him a bit while he was driving.
Jonny!
Oh, my god, what'd you hit?
We ended up running over the test dummy.
His name is carl.
I think it's short for, "car-landed on my chest".
[laughing]
Oh, no, this isn't good.
Matt, if only your friends from hope search and rescue
Were in the immediate area.
I know.
♪
They made me the team lead.
Okay, so there's these bags that you put under the car
That get inflated and lift the car.
And I got the pneumatics.
It's hooked up to a canister.
Okay, so now you're the most important person on the scene.
That's your biggest mistake in this.
[laughing] yeah, we're gonna find out.
The only thing I know about lifting a car with pneumatics
I learned from a dr. Dre video.
[laughing]
I don't really know what I'm doing.
But, you know, they walked me through it.
This is just a small part of it.
Because if we have to cut the car open in order to get the
Patient out, we have to set up the hydraulic pump and all
The jaws of life, all the rescue equipment.
I was gonna say we could try it on my truck,
But I passed on the extra insurance.
Yeah.
But eventually it worked, you know, and lifted.
That wheel came off carl.
Yeah, this is pretty cool.
Did I do a good job as team lead?
I don't know, but carl, he's in one piece.
And to tell you the truth,
I think he got a weight off his chest.
[laughing]
But it was fun to be out with the team.
That was a first for me, you know,
Remaining at the scene of an accident.
[laughing]
I think I learned a lot. I think, yeah...
[applause]
I heard about a tour company called bad rock
That was on a good roll.
Sonny mchalsie and bonnie graham.
[cheering & applause]
They operate a guided bus tour with a focus on
Indigenous sto:Lo place themes in the original
Halq'eméylem language.
Bad rock tours leaves from chilliwack,
Comes down the valley.
Sonny leads the tour and talks about all the place names.
I talk about 120 place names.
Is that right?
I talk nonstop for seven hours.
At the end of the day, you're tired of me.
Ha-ha.
He said the sto:Lo place names could be names for rivers or
Rock formations, you name it.
Well, sonny names it and explains it.
You know what I mean.
[laughing]
But I was just asking him about hope 'cause I'd
Heard like a couple of different stories, but that
Nobody really knew how hope got that name.
Our name for the town of hope is ts'qo:Ls.
And ts'qo:Ls does not mean hope.
So, ts'qo:Ls means bare or bald.
And it's called that because they have all that wind
That blows from the coast, right into hope.
So, if you look at the tops of the trees there,
They're bare or bald on the west side.
It's kind of funny that you went from bald to hope.
Maybe you're on rogaine.
[laughing]
The halq'eméylem names tell you something about
What it looks like or how to navigate it or
What you're gonna encounter there.
As opposed to like, a lot of times
European's name places, you know,
To honour other people who may or
May not have a lot to do with that area.
Like, even the thompson river.
Let's say david thompson never, ever came to
The thompson river, but it carries that name.
I think, case in point, mount ogilvy.
I haven't met anybody who knows who ogilvy was.
- Our name for it is qemqemo. - And what does that...?
Shaped like a mountain goat breast.
Ever since he told me, that's all I see.
- [laughing] - do you know what I mean?
I mean, you gotta picture the mountain upside down.
But once you do...
[laughing]
Yeah, I see teat, you know what I mean, like...
Bonnie's also an artist who has been tasked with
Creating a unique sto:Lo font.
So, it's english characters,
But done with the coast salish style.
It's my own personal mission in
Sharing the language through art.
And it's all tied together with making sure
The language stays alive.
As far as fonts go, it is bold and just my type.
[laughing]
And listen...
You know she's good with characters,
She manages to keep sonny in line.
[laughing]
♪
You know, many productions have taken advantage of
Your scenery here, including a movie...
That for 40 years has remained one of the most enduring and
Popular action films in movie history.
I'm talking about rambo: First blood.
[cheering & applause]
If they want the real deal tour,
They seek out this guy, brian mckinney.
[cheering & applause]
15 to 20,000 people a year
Come to hope, british columbia, canada
Because this is where their
Favourite 80s cult movie was shot.
It had everything that the script was looking for.
The mountains, the water, the cliffs.
And, of course, the willingness to cooperate.
Hope was eager to have the production come here.
They came here and they said, "okay, listen,
We got to close streets and shoot late in the night".
"oh, yes, no problem here in hope. Not at all".
"okay, there's gonna be a lot of automatic
Gunfire and explosions".
"yes, oh my god, no worries at all".
"and for the last scene, we're gonna blow up a gas station".
"blow up a gas station!
My god, we got a bunch we're not using".
[laughing]
And so, the production came and the town
Was abuzz with excitement.
Brian was only a school kid at the time.
They would do field trips out of school.
You know, they'd be like,
"oh, they're shooting first blood downtown".
When I was a kid, I wasn't allowed to watch rambo.
Here, they'd call your parents if you missed it.
[laughing]
♪
If you're a fan of first blood, you're getting goosebumps
Right now because we are actually almost sitting right on
The doorstep of where the sheriff's office was built.
When they shot rambo, they encompassed
Parts of hope that were already landmarks.
For example, the othello tunnels,
And that's where they shot some of the iconic scenes
Of rambo's scaling down to sheer rock face.
It's just beautiful there.
It's funny, you know, this town reminds me
Of sylvester stallone.
And not just because they shot rambo here,
But because it's rocky too.
[laughing] ah!
[applauding]
Woo!
The fan base is just growing.
It really is, it's just gone crazy.
Talking about, you know,
The sheer endurance of this movie.
I think it was two years ago that rambo
Got his own chainsaw carving.
Although, I don't know if the whole thing was done
With chainsaws 'cause those abs, to me,
They look chiseled.
[laughing]
There might be hundreds of vacant motel rooms
Here in hope, but if you really...
Want the best place to crash, look no further than
Brigade days demolition derby.
I spoke with scott medlock, jim lasser
And katie antonishka.
[cheering & applause]
♪
We hold the distinction of having the longest
Continuous running derby in...
Probably canada, possibly north america.
53 years running this year.
It was originally the fire department started off
Doing it and then we picked it up and...
- Carried it on. - Continued running with it.
They told me the big derby is at the fall fair.
You get ready to go in the arena and you look up.
Thousands of people out there cheering you on.
There's nothing better than that.
All these people that come from miles around and
See cars get demolished.
- [bang]! - Wow!
My goodness.
Usually, if I get demolished at the fall fair,
It's 'cause I've had a few too many vodka cran.
[laughing]
But it's not just a demolition derby.
There's figure eight racing, four by four racing.
♪
- Are we good to go? - Yeah.
Somebody was generous enough to let me take a car
For a little rip around the figure eight course.
I went out with katie and it was a blast.
Now, to the untrained eye,
You might look at this car and say, okay...
"there's an alignment issue".
[laughing]
You might look at this car and say, oh,
You know the back wheels don't "aim forwards".
Oh! [laughing]
Keep going!
Oh, did you lose steering?
Unfortunately, after a few laps,
It was my front wheels that I couldn't turn.
[laughing]
Then I got to officiate a figure eight race.
♪
[horn honking]
Katie's little brother, steven, he was there.
12 years' old and, and doing figure eight racing.
I mean, he's fast, he's aggressive.
If he wants to get his license in four years from now,
This young man has a lot to unlearn.
[laughing]
- Steven, is this your car? - Yes.
I happen to have a refurbished front bumper.
I'll give you a great deal on it.
What do his teachers say?
"oh, steven, how was your weekend?"
"well, I got into a car accident."
"oh, my god, do you want to talk about it?"
"do I? There I was second place,
Three laps to go..."
[laughing]
Hey, look at that!
Good as new.
♪
You know, if you ever get this chance to come here to hope,
I definitely think you should do it.
From the rambo tour to wood carvings and more.
It's a shame that most just drive through it.
Put on a helmet and ram other cars
In an armoured chevy impala.
If you really want a thrill, go pack some extra undies
And go drive the coquillha.
Hope search and rescue will come find you,
If things go off the rails and into vehicular mayhem.
Or just sit back on the bus and hear hope's history
In its original halq'eméylem.
Next time you're in hope don't just grab a snack and
Put some gas in your car. For a gateway to somewhere,
You might just find it's pretty cool where you are.
Thanks for coming out, hope. You've been amazing.
- [cheering & applause] - been great, thank you!
[cheering & applause]
Awesome, it was a wonderful evening.
It was really special tonight being in here and
Hearing laughter.
♪
We could all use a little bit more hope right now and,
Johnny just hit it right out of the park.
♪
Sonny's memory is incredible.
They call me one-take sonny.
- Oh, yeah? - [laughing]
[camera clicking]
Love to give you a hope motorsports group t-shirt.
- Right on, look at this. - Got our slogan on the back.
- "talk derby to me". - I love it, I love it.
Excellent to see everybody that was involved in the show.
That was fantastic.
Good sample of the whole community.
Coming to you live from hope, bc.
♪
[laughing]