The Final Email ❤️

May 01, 2025

The Final Email.

 

What a weekend! 

Jocelyn and I can’t even begin to thank everyone — our American friends for helping support our economy during this tariff and annexation nonsense, and all the Nanaimo locals who pitched in and made everyone feel so welcome.

We knew it would be a fun weekend; we had no idea we would make so many real friends. And all from a little TikTok video.

Watch the final video:

 

✅ WANT MORE CANADA? Through all this, I started writing about Canadian culture, identity, history, and politics. Feel free to follow along!

🎉 What now? Will this be annual?

We would love to have you back next year, but Jocelyn and I are exhausted (and have day jobs! lol). So we’ll leave it in the hands of Tourism Nanaimo. We hope they pick up the baton and run with it.

📱 Please stay in touch!

Tod: YouTube • Bluesky • Twitch • TikTok
Email Tod: Contact form
Jocelyn: TikTok or Bluesky

(Tod is also on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn, and Mastodon but does not post regularly there, nor check comments or DMs.)

🗓️ Upcoming Nanaimo events

If you couldn’t make it this past weekend, or want a return visit, there’s lots happening!

▶️ The videos

🙏🏻 So many people to thank

I will be forever grateful to the many, many people who took it upon themselves to pitch in. This list will miss some people, for which I apologize. Know that even if I missed you here, we were so very grateful:

  • The City: Deb, Dale, and the Mayor and Council. They were valiant in their efforts to try to make this event fit, and when it couldn’t, to come up with workarounds.

  • Kate Poirier — the organizer of the Cedar Farmers Market, who organized the all-local market on the Friday

  • Danielle Hartwick — the organizer of the Friday food truck festival. Both Kate and Danielle took a chance in setting these up, even though I couldn’t tell them whether it would be 5 people or 500. (Spoiler: It was even more than 500!)

  • Dirk Heydemann of HA Photography — one of Nanaimo’s best photographers, who took the official family photo (below).

  • Barbara, Laura, and Laurie — the ladies who set up that amazing volunteer info booth with the Adopt an American cards!

  • Everyone who brought me spray cheese! I ended up with like 14 cans which I will enjoy for the next few years! 🤣

  • Our friend Kelli who looked after us and our sanity, leading up to and during the weekend.

  • My mom, June — she was this event’s #1 fan and had some solid advice along the way. Her web site is soulistry.com (that’s her in the far left of the photo below)

And finally, truly none of this could have happened without my best friend and beautiful wife Jocelyn. I always knew we made a good team, and this weekend proved it once again. Jocelyn is the secret glue that holds both me, and my crazy-ass projects, together. ❤️ 

Turn on images

🏁 The End.

So, that’s it.

If you want to reach me, you’ll find a link to my Contact Form at todmaffin.com

We hope this weekend brought you some hope that light will always shine through the darkest places, and friendship can’t be destroyed by threats or tariffs.

As I said in my brief comments Saturday morning: “No matter who you are, or where your family is from, or who you love, or how many trans kids you have… you are welcome in our country.”

Until we meet again, friends.
Tod and Jocelyn 🇨🇦 
 

My friends, love is better than anger.
Hope is better than fear.
Optimism is better than despair.

So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic.
And we’ll change the world.

Jack Layton

Credit: Dirk Heydemann of HA Photography

✅ P.S. Don’t forget to stay connected by signing up to my email newsletter, or my Patreon, or my YouTube channel.