A U.K. national singing Mariah Carey’s iconic Christmas song, All I Want For Christmas Is You, in Golden Ears Provincial Park on Christmas Day has been making the rounds on social media after a quick-thinking hiker recorded the scene on her phone.
Vikki McNamara, who lives in Langley but hails from Bexhill, East Sussex in England, was camping in the park with two other British nationals. They have not been able to return home since the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
The group had set up camp at Gold Creek and hiked down to the banks of a creek to have dinner.
They were playing Christmas music when Carey’s song came on and McNamara stood up for her friends and started to sing.
At that moment Katrina Dicks of Vancouver was hiking by on the other side of the waterway.
“So when we were enjoying the views, off in the distance I can hear someone singing quietly and her voice carried and sounded amazing,” said Dicks on Facebook.
She said there were about five other families out walking, and they stopped to listen to McNamara as well.
So, she yelled across and asked McNamara to sing the song again, but a bit louder, while she recorded.
“This is what I got. Amazing,” commented Dicks in her Christmas Day post.
The video has been a hit on social media, and was posted to the Facebook group Friends of Albion. It has been shared by her family and friends in the United Kingdom and has also been featured in a B.C. newscast.
When Dicks asked to film her singing, McNamara didn’t think anything of it.
“I didn’t think she could hear me,” said McNamara, who arrived in the province in May 2019, seeking the outdoor recreation that B.C. offers.
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The same group of friends had just returned from Manning Park where they pitched tents for an overnight trip in three feet of snow.
This was the first time the 30-year-old commercial insurance broker had experienced this part of Golden Ears park at this time of the year. During the summer she had visited Alouette Lake with a paddle board.
McNamara, who has no vocal training, is astounded by all the attention she has received.
“I upload things onto my Instagram occasionally, but I didn’t have Facebook up until this point,” she said noting that she had deactivated her Facebook account “years ago.”
“It’s so strange,” she said of the entire experience. She wasn’t in cell range in the park, so when she returned home her friends told her she had to check out the video on Facebook.
“My friends all ask me to sing at their weddings,” noted McNamara who will be singing for her best friend’s ceremony in May.
“I know that I can sing,” she added. “I wasn’t actually aware that I was that good.
“It just really made my Christmas, it did,” said McNamara, who is planning to move to Canada permanently.
She has reached out to Dicks and the pair are planning a socially distanced walk in Golden Ears on Saturday.
“That wasn’t something I even intended on happening. I don’t seek fame, I’m not that type of person,” added McNamara.
“It really made my whole Christmas and New Year’s.”
cflanagan@mapleridgenews.com
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