ICYMI: The Amazing Race Canada puts Centre Wellington 'on the map'

This article was previously published on GuelphToday and EloraFergusToday.

CENTRE WELLINGTON – An appearance on one of Canada’s biggest TV shows will be a benefit for Elora and Fergus, says locals who were involved with the episode. 

Elora, Fergus and Guelph area was the destination for the latest episode of reality competition series The Amazing Race Canada which saw contestants racing or doing challenges starting at the McCrae House in Guelph, then onto the Elora Quarry, the Wellington County Museum and Archives (WCMA), Kitras Art Glass, Elora Centre for the Arts, Dublin Street United Church in Guelph and finishing at the University of Guelph’s Arboretum. 

This was the CTV series’ sixth episode of its tenth season. According to Bell Media, the average viewership of season nine made it the overall number one program for the 2022-2023 broadcast year and marked its ninth consecutive season as Canada’s most watched summer series among adults aged 25 to 54. 

“It’s one of the biggest TV shows in Canada, one that has one of the biggest audience viewership so it’s super exciting to have Centre Wellington featured in it,” said Joao Carrolo, Centre Wellington’s tourism and destination coordinator. 

It’s not just the viewership that counts either, Carrolo explained, but for the type of show it is too. 

“It’s a super exciting and engaging show but also showcases the natural beauty, places of interest, arts, culture and even the community to an extent,” he said. “There’s huge value in a show that reaches so many people to have such a beautiful portrait of Centre Wellington and the things that you can do and the things that you can see in our communities.”

Carrolo also handles filming permits and acts as a film liaison for the township and had been working with the production company since October, at first showing them the potential of the area and later making sure Centre Wellington was featured prominently in the episode.

In her career as an archivist, WCMA’s Karen Wagner didn’t think she’d be “part of a game show” at any point but ended up being featured in the episode giving the thumbs up or thumbs down to racers.

She explained filming scouts were in the area prior to filming and ended up on a tour of the museum and archives when they were inspired by the microfilm readers as there would be enough to accommodate every team. 

The challenge ended up seeing racers looking through microfilm with six months of the now defunct weekly Fergus Elora News Express newspaper from 1985 to spot a fake headline spliced in.

The experience was overall a positive one she said and could benefit the WCMA.

“It gives the museum and archives, as well as other sites within the immediate area, a national profile and hopefully they will come visit us as a result,” Wagner said. 

Stephen Kitras, owner of Kitras Art Glass who appeared in the episode alongside his daughter Sophie Wilmer, was part of the detour where racers have to pick between two challenges, one was to successfully create a circle through glassblowing. 

Kitras, who instructed the racers how to do it, thought it was a tough challenge because he wasn’t allowed to give any tips while they were doing it. 

“They couldn’t ask any questions and they couldn’t interfere with what they were doing … they just were so close so many times but I couldn’t look at them and I couldn’t do anything to help them,” Kitras said.

Kitras agreed this would benefit the area. 

“I think it just puts us on the map and especially the Gorge, it’s really beautiful and stuff like that. For us well I’ll have to ask my daughter if people phoned in orders,” Kitras said while laughing. 

The other detour challenge had contestants at the Elora Centre for the Arts where they had to memorize objects inside a painting inside the centre and then recreate the scene to the finest detail outside judged by the arts centre’s own Sonia Cheng.

“It was an absolute pleasure to work with host Jon Montgomery, The Amazing Race Canada crew and the team at Insight Productions,” the Elora Centre for the Arts wrote on Facebook. 

Carrolo said the community also appeared to have a lot of pride in having its towns be the location for an episode. 

The township held a watch party Tuesday evening for the episode at the Fergus Grand Theatre that Carrolo said had around 100 people show up. He was expecting a few dozen. 

Alex Jaworiwsky, City of Guelph's manager of tourism, said a live watch party held outdoors at the Guelph Museum saw about 60 people attend.

“People were cheering every time they saw something that they recognized on the show,” Carrolo said. “There’s also this beautiful sense of pride in the community, this sense of local identity that you see, moments like these and shows like these can definitely strengthen. It’s beautiful to see a community feeling very proud.”