Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog is filmed eating a Nanaimo bar and zip-lining over Sway’A’Lana Lagoon for a Tourism Nanaimo video. (TOURISM NANAIMO photo)

Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog is filmed eating a Nanaimo bar and zip-lining over Sway’A’Lana Lagoon for a Tourism Nanaimo video. (TOURISM NANAIMO photo)

Tourism Nanaimo invites celebrities to sample ‘real’ Nanaimo bars

Tourism organization creates video, invites actors Seth Rogen and Dan Levy to visit

  • Jul. 23, 2019 12:00 a.m.

Celebrities crave Nanaimo bars, just like the rest of us.

Tourism Nanaimo encourages anyone to eat Nanaimo bars, but last week it specifically issued an invitation to Canadian actors Seth Rogen and Dan Levy.

Both made posts about the dessert via social media earlier this month after the New York Times published a recipe for Nanaimo bars and tweeted about the “tremendously sweet, no-bake layered bar cookie from Canada.”

Tourism Nanaimo, with the help of local politicians, a drag queen and others, put together a video invite to Rogen and Levy to Vancouver Island “to try the real Nanaimo bar.”

“Come to Nanaimo,” says Mayor Leonard Krog before zip-lining over Sway’A’Lana Lagoon.

MLA Sheila Malcolmson takes a bite of Nanaimo bar and says, “It’s not a cookie.”

The video also features mountain bike trails, rainbow crosswalks, a ferry and a bathtub, and White Sails Brewing general manager Brian McCarthy dunks a Nanaimo bar in beer before taking a bite.

“It was important to craft a made-in-Nanaimo response to the buzz surrounding the Nanaimo Bar, to show our sense of humour, and to invite our unofficial Nanaimo bar ambassadors, Dan Levy and Seth Rogen, to visit us in the Harbour City,” said Karen Bannister, manager of Tourism Nanaimo, in a press release.

She said Tourism Nanaimo “couldn’t be happier” with the response to the video, which garnered 25,000 views in three days.

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