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The kindness of strangers helped transform what could have been a travel nightmare into a birthday one Saskatoon woman won’t soon forget.
Patricia Robinson was due to fly into Kelowna on Saturday, a gift from her family for 90th birthday.
Wildfires were raging in British Columbia. Thick smoke from the Bald Range fire near Summerland forced the Kelowna airport to scrub 40 flights, including Robinson’s, which had travelled about halfway from Calgary to Kelowna when it was forced to turn back.
That’s when fate stepped in.
On the shortened flight, Robinson had struck up a conversation with her seatmate, Lake Country resident Quinn Sedmak.
“We chatted our way pretty much from from Calgary to Kelowna and back to Calgary again,” she said. “[We] just found many things in common.”
Sedmak was keen to get to Kelowna and mentioned he might try to rent a car to drive there. That caught the attention of Tanner Salewich, a West Kelowna auxiliary firefighter who was sitting behind them.
“They were both anxious to get home. And I, of course, was anxious to get here to my family. So that’s how it all started,” Robinson said.
The group was initially separated at the Calgary airport, until a helpful WestJet gate attendant reunited them, Salewich said.
“[The attendant] went walking away and ended up coming back with Miss Pat in a chair and rolled her up, and we said, ‘You know what? Let’s cancel some flights and go for a drive,'” he told CBC News.
Thick wildfire smoke in the Okanagan Valley has forced multiple flight delays and cancellations at the Kelowna airport. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
That kicked off a seven-hour road trip through the Rocky Mountains and into B.C.’s Interior as the unlikely trio of strangers became travel companions.
Robinson said the group didn’t “dilly dally,” stopping only to stretch their legs and grab a quick snack.
“I don’t know how my family felt with me embarking on this journey with two strangers, but I just had a really good feeling about the both of them,” she said.
“They were just very chivalrous, gallant, young men … my instincts and trusting these two young men were bang on.”
Salewich said the three “clicked,” trading stories and listening to comedians on the radio.
‘Their mothers did a very good job,’ Patricia Robinson says of her unlikely travel companions. (CBC News)
Along the way, Robinson and Salewich realized they shared something else in common.
“I didn’t really think about my birthday being on the Saturday,” Salewich said.
“She says, ‘That’s the same birthday.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ll be 45.’ And she says, ‘Well, that’s exactly half my age.'”
In a text message, Sedmak described the adventure as an “act of kindness,” and said he hoped it inspired others.
“I simply ask that anyone who enjoyed this fun story to do something kind, thoughtful themselves this week, month, year. And don’t look for recognition,” he told CBC News.
“The feeling of doing something because it’s the right thing to do, is better than ‘likes.'”
Now back with her family, Robinson is decompressing and looking forward to celebrating her 90th birthday on Aug. 15.
But she described the midnight run with two friendly strangers as a “special gift” she’ll treasure for years to come.
“All this trauma that’s going on with the fires and the losses, people are suffering — and it just is a wonderful story,” she said.
“Their mothers did a very good job.”