Calgary-based father and son decided to make their own amazing race Canada adventure when they kept getting rejected from the show.John van Roessel/Supplied
What do you do when years of applying to The Amazing Race Canada doesn’t result in a spot on the reality show? If you’re Alberta father-and-son duo John and Spencer van Roessel, you create your own race across the nation.
Earlier this year, I stood teetering on the edge of a platform at Great Canadian Bungee, about to plunge more than 200 feet for fun. Our group bonded quickly as we walked up to the top of Morrison’s Quarry in Chelsea, Que. I was drawn to the two men wearing matching T-shirts, and by the time we reached the bungee-jumping platform, I knew more about them than I did about many of my longtime co-workers. Nerves definitely made us chatty.
For leg six of their trip, the father-son duo headed to Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia.Spencer van Roessel/Supplied
The van Roessels explained that after being shortlisted but not selected by The Amazing Race Canada, the Calgarians designed a 17-day, coast-to-coast adventure inspired by the show.
“We called it the Amazing Adventure,” said 65-year-old John. Father and son were alternating the responsibility of planning each leg of the trip. Just like on the TV show, they surprised each other with destinations, physical challenges and scavenger hunts as they travelled across the country.
Spencer, 23, had designed this leg of the adventure and said that allowed him to be more mentally prepared for the bungee jump. His father was a good sport about it being his Father’s Day activity, though he admitted his last words before taking the leap are not printable in this newspaper.
The two became fans of The Amazing Race Canada in 2013 during its first season when Spencer was 10. While watching, they discussed what they would have done differently or better than the contestants.
The pair first applied as a father-son team in 2022, when Spencer was old enough to become a contestant, and have continued to apply every year since. In 2025, they advanced to the second round of the selection process before getting cut this January.
“The rejection after making it to the second round was harder than the previous three years of hearing nothing,” John said. “It provided us a bigger incentive to make our own trip happen.
“It took a while to pin down the timing, as it had to fit in with work, school and a few other events. Then it became a reality.”
John said he was hoping for some “fun bonding times, a bit of adventure and challenge, and a chance to see more of Canada.”
Leg two took them to the Yukon River.Spencer van Roessel/Supplied
During the planning stages, John got creative, designing and printing envelopes (just like on the TV show) to hold instructions on where to go and what to do next.
They picked destinations they really wanted to see and others that simply fit logistically into their timeline. Over six legs, they spent two or three days in each destination, moving from Calgary to the West Coast, and then crossing Canada to the east. “Not counting cities where we only spent time at airports, we went to 19 cities, towns or parks,” John said in an interview after their summer adventure was complete.
Leg five was in Shediac, New Brunswick.Spencer van Roessel/Supplied
Day 1 in Alberta began at Big Rock in Okotoks, then the pair visited an elder in Kainai Nation and travelled to Waterton Lakes National Park. The second day involved hiking Bear’s Hump trail in the park and visiting Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump World Heritage Site, before catching a flight to Victoria and then driving to Chemainus, B.C., for a challenge where they counted as many murals as they could in 30 minutes. On Day 3, they drove further north on Vancouver Island to Cathedral Grove to find the tallest tree in its old-growth forest and calculate the volume of the trunk, then headed to Ucluelet to go kayaking. On Day 4, they walked the beach in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve.
Then it was Spencer’s turn to set the agenda. His leg took them from Vancouver Island to the Yukon, where they wandered Whitehorse at midnight in the sun, hiked trails at Kathleen Lake in Kluane National Park, and then canoed on the Yukon River.
“The Yukon was definitely the most memorable,” Spencer said. “The scenery, the towns, daylight until midnight were all things so different from anywhere else I’d been.”
John said he’ll still be talking about canoeing the Yukon River 20 years from now.
The next leg took them to Manitoba for a scavenger hunt in Winnipeg and a quest to find the Viking statue in Gimli, then it was a flight to Toronto and a three-and-a-half-hour drive to Algonquin Provincial Park to canoe and bike.
While in New Brunswick, the two stopped by Hopewell Rocks.Spencer van Roessel/Supplied
Spencer brought them to Gatineau in Quebec, then to Ottawa, Montreal and back to Chelsea, Que., for the Father’s Day bungee jump – Spencer’s most memorable part of the trip.
“We were so tight on time at the train station in Montreal, that Spencer had to abandon a food order after paying for it,” John said. But he thinks they did well, considering less than half of the adventure was planned prior to leaving.
Their escapades continued with hiking in Quebec, exploring the tidal floor at Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park in New Brunswick, and eating lobster in nearby Shediac.
“The hike up Mont-Sainte-Anne was probably the hardest,” John said. “The hike up Mont-Sainte-Anne was definitely the hardest,” Spencer added.
The last leg of the van Roessel’s Amazing Adventure took them to Nova Scotia to see Halifax, Peggy’s Cove and Lunenburg, then to Charlottetown and North Rustico in Prince Edward Island, before boarding a plane back to Calgary.
“Spencer took me to the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax,” said John. “That is where my parents landed when they immigrated from the Netherlands in 1954. That was a very emotional moment.”
John and Spencer applied for a fifth time to The Amazing Race Canada, hoping to make it to the real version in 2027.Spencer van Roessel/Supplied
Even though they spent 17 days together, John and Spencer happily reported that there was no tension between them.
“We ended every day with the clinking of beer glasses to toast the day and each other. That was an important part of the bonding. On Father’s Day, we toasted with ice cream cones, and in Shediac we toasted with lobster claws,” John said.
When asked if the experience was better than being on the TV show, Spencer said it was good to be able to go with the flow and just enjoy the adventure: “It didn’t matter what we were doing that day because we were doing it together.”
John is back at work at the design-build landscape company he co-owns, and Spencer returned to working as software developer.
They are holding out hope that their coming fifth application to The Amazing Race Canada means they’ll be competing for real in 2027.