This was the most Canadian television show ever made. Set and filmed in Gibson’s Landing, British Columbia, the half-hour comedy/action series was the story of Nick Adonidas (Bruno Gerussi) and his friends and enemies, all of whom were enmeshed in the high-stakes cutthroat world of … collecting logs that had floated away.
Most Canadians have fond memories of this show. We don’t really have a choice; it seemed to be on pretty much all the time. Before school, after school, on weekends … my local TV station was notorious for pre-empting cool American Saturday morning cartoons like Three Robonic Stooges and replacing them with The Beachcombers.
There’s another reason we all know this show: It ran from 1972 to 1990, which is a long time for a Canadian show. Heck, for any kind of TV show. It had a lot of cast changes along the way, but Nick and his sidekick Jesse Jim (Pat John) were constants. Other popular characters were Constable John Constable, the village cop (Jackson Davies) and Relic, Nick’s crusty rival (Robert Clothier). When Clothier died in 1999, my pub threw a Drink To Relic night. That’s impact, people.
What was its charm? The locale was a big part of it, I suppose. I’ve been to Gibson’s, and it’s beautiful. Somewhere there’s a photo of me standing outside Molly’s Reach, the iconic cafe that was the primary focus of the series. Episodes were shot out on the water, with plenty of speedboat chases, goofily sinister villains-of-the-week and odd attempts every now and then to work social issues into the mix.
And it had a fantastic theme song.
Most of all, it was just fun, and was a rare show the whole family could watch. And I liked the unapologetic Canadianness of it. We’re saturated with U.S. television up here, and for a kid in the 70s, The Beachcombers was a homegrown treat.
It was also a bit of an ambassador, airing in numerous other countries. Foreigners watching this show would probably conclude a few things about Canadians:
- … we all live by the water
- … we enjoy the cultivation of big healthy moustaches
- … our teenagers live alone or with strange old men, and are pretty obnoxious
- … collecting lost logs won’t make you rich, but you get to Be Your Own Man
- … every crook, fugitive, con artist, smuggler, thief or random beautiful woman will wind up in Gibson’s Landing at some point.
It was never cool. Later attempts to jazz it up — including a name change to Beachcombers! with an exclamation mark — never clicked. There were a couple of sequel movies and attempts to revive the concept (with most of the original cast dead, new actors were brought in, and things never clicked). But it wasn’t supposed to be cool. It was supposed to be Canadian.
– Kennedy, Starbase 66
