Vancouver friends win big on The Amazing Race Canada finale

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Two Vancouver friends, Jesse Harink and Jonathon Braun, are the newest winners of The Amazing Race Canada.

The Tuesday night finale of the CTV competition series saw the Vancouver team battle against three other teams: Prince George siblings Grace Dove and Joe Syme, Edmonton husband and wife Blair and Skylene Gladue, and Toronto brothers EB and Blake Burnett.

The pair earned a $250,000 cash payout, a trip around the world, and two 2025 Chevrolet Blazer EV SS vehicles for their winning efforts.

It was third time lucky for the pair of Vancouver friends as they had applied to The Amazing Race Canada two times prior to being accepted for season 11.

The pair first met at a cross-fit gym in Vancouver in 2018 and hit it off immediately.
“Jesse is just the biggest cheerleader and just such a big bubbly personality. That just drew me to him,” said Braun.

When it comes to the prize money both say they are going to save and invest a lot of it, but still have a bit of fun.

“I am waiting for Cher to announce her fair final farewell tour, and then I’m going to take my mom. But honestly, I’m just going to be smart with it. Make sure to put most of it away,” said Harink told Postmedia. “I think winning this amount of money just gives you the ability to kind of dream a bit bigger with some security. So I just kind of want to get into that dream stage of what’s next.”

Braun is also planning a trip with his parents as well he is going to put funds towards a home. But first he’s fulfilling a dream he has had for awhile.

“One thing I’m pursuing now is I wrote a little children’s book when I was younger a long time ago, and I’ve always wanted to get it illustrated,” said Braun about his kids book The Fuzzy Grey Mouse.

In the Season 11 finale the teams competed in a variety of physical and mental challenges that saw them scaling the inside of a grain silo, jet-surfing, delivering cupcakes on a water bike and bobbing for apples.

Heading into the last episode, Skylene and Blair were in first place, followed by Grace and Joe, Jesse and Jonathon, and EB and Blake.

A big turning point in the finale was the new, franchise-first Double Roadblock held in a silo at the massive Collingwood Grain Terminals. The challenge had one team member descend into the dark of the abandoned silo with a black light, searching for numbers and shapes written on the walls in invisible ink.

Those numbers were then delivered to the second team member who had to commit them to memory then climb the silo and retrieve the corresponding grain bags up top.

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The Vancouver team came out on top as Jonathon emerged with the right combination quicker than anyone else, and Jesse took that lead and climbed with it.

The duo carried on their winning pace into the final challenge, a memory puzzle involving 50 giant road signs and 10 posts, each representing a leg of the race. Jesse and Jonathon got to the final challenge first but close on their heels were Grace and Joe, and then EB and Blake.

Jesse and Jonathon cracked the code first and were sent off running and held their lead to the finish line at the Osler Bluff Ski Club. Coming in second were Grace and Joe followed by EB and Blake then in third, and then Skylene and Blair.

During the 11th season the show visited five provinces, 24 cities and one territory covering 19,000 kilometres during the show’s ten legs. Filming took place between April 22 and May 16 of this year. That timeline meant a big secret had to be kept.

“It was fun to keep it a secret,” said Braun a lawyer for a non-profit.  “It’s so much more fun to watch the show and (our friends and family) not knowing what’s gonna happen.”

Braun added that his father was on hand to watch the finale with him in a Toronto bar.

“My dad came to a watch party here, and he was having a fit, just so stressed out,” said Braun. “He kept having to leave the bar and to go de stress. And I was like, ‘Dad, it’s already aired in Nova Scotia. Do we need to go talk about what happened, just so you don’t have a heart attack. We can do that.’ He’s like, no, it’s fine. It’s fine. It was hilarious.”

Now that the experience is said and done and they can tell their tale the Vancouver pair both say they will always look back on this fondly. When asked if they had a good time they said at the same time: absolutely.

“This experience with your best friend is truthfully one of the most rewarding experiences,” said Harink who added he loved a month without his phone. “I think very few people get a moment to kind of disconnect from the world and focus on something with such concentration.”

CTV recently announced that The Amazing Race Canada, hosted by Olympic gold medallist Jon Montgomery, will have a season 12 in 2026, with casting details to be announced soon.