This is a continuation of our Move Outdoors series, where we highlight individuals who inspire others to get outside and connect with nature through movement and exercise. Know someone who we should feature? Email news@bcparksfoundation.ca.
Photo: Mark Kelly
Meet Gurdeep Pandher, bhangra dancer and teacher
My name is Gurdeep Pandher and I live in the Yukon wilderness. I teach, dance, and perform bhangra, which is the traditional dance of Punjab or Punjabi people. I’ve been making videos and sharing them on social media to spread joy, hope, and positivity and that’s how people know me.
Photo: Destination Canada
What are some ways you like to spend time outdoors?
Outdoor dancing is my favourite activity. I like to go in nature and dance, which is a great workout – it’s high energy exercise.
I love to go to beautiful scenic areas in the Yukon, or wherever in Canada, and sometimes, whenever I get a chance, I also go for skiing. When I get a chance, I like to go on nature walks as well.
I feel that it’s very important to create connections with nature. I live in a cabin in the wilderness of the Yukon. I purposely chose to live outside of the city so that I can stay in touch with nature all the time.
When we’re indoors, we don’t notice changes in nature a lot of the time. But when you live in the lap of nature, like somewhere in the countryside or a rural community, then you see nature changing everyday. Everyday, there’s something new. If you look at trees, they’re changing their colours, or changing the shape of their leaves. You will notice new birds that come during different seasons of the year.
By being close to nature, you get to observe these beautiful, precious elements. So whenever I get a chance, I love to be outdoors doing these activities.
Photo: Stewart Burnett
Where are some places that you like to go for outdoor adventures in the Yukon?
Yukon is a big territory – I’d say almost as big as British Columbia is. I like to go to many places in the Yukon, but specifically, there’s one area that I love going to is close to my cabin – it’s called Lake Laberge. I make many of my videos at Lake Laberge. Lake Laberge is also famed due to the poetry of famous Yukon poet, Robert service.
Apart from that, I like to go to Fish Lake and during the summertime, I like to go to Miles Canyon and Haines Junction. Haines Junction is another town, about a 2-to-3-hour drive from here. It’s home to Kluane National Park and Reserve and the mountains there are so beautiful and big!
Kluane National Park is also known for the largest population of grizzly bears in Canada. There’s a lot of wildlife, different lakes, beautiful trails for hiking, and there are lot of old glaciers too.
Sometimes during the year, I also get a chance to go to Tombstone Territorial Park. It’s around a 4-to-5-hour drive from my cabin. It’s north to me – an amazing place, with the Grizzly Lake Hiking Trail – it’s picturesque, beautiful. Other than that, there are other locations in the Yukon which are beautiful places to go and enjoy nature, like Dawson City and Carcross.
But in the Yukon, I also feel that wherever you go, you’ll find nature since it’s very vast and has wide open spaces. Sometimes, I just drive 1 km from my cabin here and there and I see that there’s a lot of beautiful nature just in my neighbourhood! Yukon is full of nature!
Photo: Mark Kelly
Your videos have been praised for inspiring and uplifting so many people. What inspired you to start creating and posting your videos?
I’ve been making these videos for the last 5 or 6 years, starting in 2016. Originally, there wasn’t a big purpose behind them. You know the way we make we make videos on a regular basis to show to our friends or local community members about what you did during the day or to post on social media? It was just for that purpose.
But very soon, I started noticing that a lot more people started watching my videos. That became an inspiration for me to continue making videos–even better videos–and then, some of them went viral. Especially the one from Canada Day 2016 – it went viral.
Photo: Destination Canada
And then I made another video in early 2017 with the Mayor of Whitehorse, teaching him how to wear a Sikh turban and dance bhangra. That video also went viral. I did a video with the Canadian Armed Forces, with Paralympic athlete Stephanie Dixon, and Chief Dana Tizya-Tramm. People really appreciated these videos.
But I think that I became more passionate about these videos when the pandemic started. When I saw on the news that were people were feeling the stress of new regulations, especially when the pandemic was starting, and people were not sure about it. Nowadays, we have a lot more information about COVID, but in March 2020, it was all very new for people – wearing masks, keeping 6-feet of distance, doing virtual education for children, working from home – it was totally brand new for a lot of people.
So, at that time I thought that if I can start making my videos, I could help to spread some positivity, joy, and hope. That’s the reason that I started making more videos – almost one video per day to spread joy, hope, and positivity across Canada and beyond during the difficult times of the of the pandemic. That was a really big motivator.
Photo: Jared Leary
How do you plan and film your videos?
I film my videos myself; everything is done by me. I put my camera on a tripod, I use a big monitor so that I can watch myself and see how I look in the camera. I also try to use really good equipment so that the videos look good!
As for planning, it’s spontaneous. It’s not that I make a plan, like hey, I need to go to a certain place everyday, I just think about new place and go there.
It’s time consuming. Like yesterday, I made a video and it almost took the whole day. Sometimes going to a place, then finding the right spot, filming the dance, editing and publishing it – even for a 1-minute long video, it can take up your whole day at times.
It’s a lot of work, but I love doing it because people tell me that it makes them happy, makes them feel positive.
Photo: Jared Leary
Tell us more about your dancing. Why did you start performing bhangra outdoors?
Actually, bhangra has history of being an outdoor dance. It started on farms in Punjab, where I’m from, a long time ago. It has a tradition of being performed on open land, open spaces, and sometimes near rivers. So that was quite a big inspiration for me, because of my heritage, and because my ancestors or my elders – they used to dance it outside.
I know that sometimes we watch bhangra videos, but that’s a more a modern version of bhangra. In the olden days, it used to be an outdoor dance, performed in nature with people celebrating and appreciating that connection, expressing their thanks and gratitude to the land for providing crops.
That kind of bhangra used to be a different dance; it was not danced to songs the way people do these days. At that time, it used to be danced to drum sounds, which you’ve probably heard in my videos. I don’t use popular songs to dance with because that’s a very new thing actually. That started happening only in the last 20, 30, 40 years. But before that, bhangra used to be danced to a drum song. That’s a pure folk dance which is very different from modern bhangra.
So here in the Yukon, dancing outside in nature is also reconnecting bhangra to its original roots, where it came from, so I find that’s a wonderful connection!
Photo: Christian Kuntz
Do you have any advice for people wanting to started with outdoor exercise or wanting to spend more time outside?
My suggestion for people would be to please get outside on an everyday basis–for any reason. Not just for one purpose, but you can go outside for many reasons.
Just for a walk, just for a run, or if you want to dance like me, you can too! Or you can go outside just to sit, enjoy, and appreciate nature. Appreciate the trees, mountains, lakes, because I think we as humans, have a great connection with nature.
I believe that we came from nature, and we will return to nature one day. I feel that nature is a supreme truth, like a supreme provider. There are different elements in nature, like water, air, land, soil, the sun – appreciate these elements and try to build a connection with them. In Sikhism, we believe that these elements of nature are like our relatives, like they’re a part of the family. I’d say, try to create some bonds with those elements of nature.
So be outside, enjoy nature, and just appreciate it.
Photo: Jared Leary
