One can excuse her luggage for being well-worn.
Janel Hirdes does a lot of travelling in her job as producer with the adventure reality television show Amazing Race Canada, which suits her just fine.
“The show has allowed me to travel to some really awesome places in Canada: Banff in Alberta, Winnipeg, Dawson City in the Yukon, Fort McMurray in Alberta, Vancouver, and Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland,” said Hirdes. “I was lucky in my early days as an associate producer to go worldwide, travelling for international legs and episodes in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Havana, Cuba, along with locations in India and Vietnam.”
The Amazing Race Canada is a reality game show, which follows several teams of paired competitors as they race across Canada and around the globe.
Each season is split into legs, with teams provided with clues and tasked to navigate through territory, interact with locals, perform physical and mental challenges, and travel by air, boat, car, taxi, and other modes of transportation.
Teams are progressively eliminated at the end of most legs for being the last to arrive at designated “pit stops.” The first team to arrive at the finish line wins a grand prize of $250,000, along with additional prizes, like expensive vehicles, from the show's sponsors.
Commissioned and broadcast by CTV, The Amazing Race Canada is produced by Insight Productions in association with Bell Media and Profiles Television. The show was renewed for an eighth season, but production was postponed until 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Season 8 premiered in July of 2022; Season 9 will soon be in production.
“I started working with Amazing Race Canada in Season 1 as a production assistant, and became a production coordinator in Seasons 2 and 3,” said Hirdes. “I then transitioned into a new role — associate producer — which involved travelling with the production team on the road, helping produce the episodes. I was in this role up until Season 6. For two years, I worked with other companies on various projects. This year I'm back for my fifth season with the show, as a producer.”
Hirdes grew up in Stratford, Ontario, and enjoyed occasional performances at the famous Stratford Festival, which kindled her love of theatrical production. Upon graduation from high school, she moved to Welland to attend Niagara College’s program in broadcasting for film, radio, and television. She graduated in 2008.
“It's a great program at Niagara, where I actually specialized in 16 millimetre film production. My class was one of the last to use proper film stock to record and film the news. Thereafter, the digital age took over, and everything now is done in video format,” she said.
Hirdes was working the midnight shift in a car parts factory, when one of her fellow students, also a Niagara College alumnus, informed her of a job available in the TV production industry.
“My mom drove me to Toronto for the interview on a Friday, and I moved to Toronto a week later to start work.,” she said. “I was a production assistant for a couple years, doing a lot of home renovation shows. I just found myself in the right place at the right time. I started to meet people, make connections, and develop mentors that brought me into different shows, many in travel television. I worked on a show called 50 Ways to Kill Your Mother, where I got to travel around the U.S., and see some really cool places in Canada as well.”
Around 2017, Hirdes and her partner, Tram — who works in the TV production industry as well — moved from Toronto to Ridgeway, where they bought a small four-season cottage.
“We loved Ridgeway, being so close to the beach” said Hirdes, “But we just needed a little more room. We had dreams of owning an orchard and growing things and kind of working the earth. We started looking for houses, and fell in love immediately with the Pelham community. We’re right across from Harold Black Park, and enjoy that greenspace.”
Hirdes drives to Toronto about once a week for her job, but when Amazing Race Canada is shooting on location, she can be gone for weeks at a time. Tram commutes back and forth to Toronto every day.
“I'm a humble person, so it's hard for me to talk about my career in the grand scheme of things,” said Hirdes. “But I’ve been really fortunate to find mentors to teach me about TV production. I’ve actually become something of a mentor myself to younger crew members. There is a lot of inclusion in the TV and film industry which I really enjoy, with a huge variety of backgrounds and abilities. I want to do my part to encourage others as they are finding their way in the industry.”
