Amazing Race Canada heads for finish line in Banff

Viewers of Amazing Race Canada: Heroes Edition learned Tuesday night that the adventure-reality series will wrap up its sixth season at Banff National Park.

Three teams, including Calgary couple Courtney Berglind and Adam Kovacs, will compete for first place in the season finale on Tuesday, Sept. 11.

The episode was filmed in May. Producers are staying tightlipped about what exactly the three teams will be doing and where they will be doing it.

But Tuesday’s episode ended with a tantalizing preview that involved helicopters, dogsledding, a slushy run down a ski hill and a zipline river crossing, all set against the beautiful backdrop of the Canadian Rockies.

“Banff is a place we’ve wanted to do for a long time,” said executive producer Mark Lysakowski. “We haven’t been here and it’s an iconic place where people around the world come and visit. We’re now in our sixth season and it’s a heroic place, so it was a nice fit for our heroes’ season.”

The season involves teams made up of Canadian heroes, including advocates, coaches, elite athletes, Mounties, navy sailors, retired air force pilots, mentors and volun- teers. The season began airing in July with 10 teams.

Berglind and Kovacs are first responders who are set to be married in November. Berglind is a nurse at Rockyview General Hospital and Kovacs is a Calgary firefighter.

The couple narrowly avoided being eliminated in Tuesday’s episode, which pitted four teams against each other in challenges that took them from Mexico City to Fredericton.

In the end, they placed third, while brother-sister team Martina and Phil Seo, volunteers from B.C., were cut from the competition.

Berglind and Kovacs will now face Dylan Elias and Kwame Osei,

coaches from Fort McMurray, and brother-sister team Taylor and Courtney Callens, who are both RCMP officers in British Columbia, for the top prize. So far, challenges for the teams this season have included crabbing in Squamish, falconry on Vancouver Island, packing durian fruit in Jakarta and playing frantic games of Jai Alai in Fronton, Mexico.

This is the first time Amazing Race Canada has been filmed in Banff. But in 2016, the second episode of Season 4 took place entirely in Calgary.

In 2004, the American version of the series ended its fifth season in Banff and Calgary, where teams visited Banff ’s Sunshine Village ski resort and Canada Olympic Park in Calgary.

The finale of Amazing Race Canada: Heroes Edition airs Tuesday, Sept. 11, on CTV.