A Canadian social media celebrity made a stop in Collingwood this weekend on his mission to "dispatch joy, hope, and positivity across Canada and beyond."
On Sunday, Gurdeep Pandher posted a video of himself dancing on a trail near Scenic Caves in Blue Mountains, after passing through Collingwood. He spent time Monday in Wasaga Beach.
Twitter users have called Pandher’s videos a “timeline cleanse.”
Hailing from the Yukon has amassed a large following on Twitter and Instagram throughout the COVID-19 pandemic sharing videos of himself doing Bhangra dance in beautiful locations in an effort to spread positivity, peace and joy.
Pandher said the view of Collingwood from the trail was “the best fall colours I’ve seen in Ontario.”
“It is a beautiful area, especially where I made my video. The view from those ridges looking out on the bay was spectacular. The view of the Town of Collingwood was spectacular from the top,” Pandher told CollingwoodToday.ca.
This summer, the social media celebrity has embarked on a cross-Canada tour making stops across the Maritimes, Quebec, and is now making his way across Ontario. His popularity has exploded over the past two years, now with 210,000 Twitter and 48,000 Instagram followers.
Bhangra dance is the traditional dance of Punjab. It is native to the Punjabi nation.
“I was dancing before the pandemic too. Some of my videos went viral before the pandemic as well,” said Pandher. “When the pandemic started I decided to make one video every day to send these messages of joy, hope and positivity across Canada and beyond during these challenging times.”
Pandher says one of the most rewarding and unexpected parts of creating content is the overwhelming number of hand-written letters he’s received at his cabin in the Yukon.
“I’m glad people are able to connect with my work,” he said. “It’s a universal language when people are able to see someone playing music or dancing. It doesn’t matter what genre or style it is.”
“It became a good recipe for me – dance and those messages,” he said.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, he spent a little bit of time in South Georgian Bay, although he noted with the weather getting colder he may be pressing pause on the tour, returning to the Yukon and then picking the tour up again next summer to finish the western provinces.
“It’s been colder than I thought,” he said with a laugh, adding that one of his followers from Cambridge lent him their vacation home in Wasaga Beach for the weekend which made it possible for him to make the stop in South Georgian Bay.
Pandher points to an explosion of mental health challenges being faced by people across Canada and beyond, and says he has received letters telling him his videos have helped people weather those challenges, specifically over the past two and a half years.
“I’m feeling honoured, grateful and blessed,” said Pandher. “I feel that people were able to find love, hope and joy. It gave me a new understanding of what I’ve been doing. It’s not just dance – it’s more than dance. It’s a work of uplifting people.”
Pandher can be found on his social media channels, through Twitter and Instagram.
