The Great Gong Show

This party has a motto.

“We say, ‘Let’s drink champagne and dance on the table,’ ” says cabin owner Bee Chalmers, about her family’s annual, epic, and action-packed holiday weekend party—a.k.a. the Pacific Island Gong Show. Gong show? “The weekend is crazy,” says her husband, Jake. “But it’s controlled chaos.”

This particular brand of controlled chaos—PIGS for short—happens every year on an island in B.C.’s Howe Sound. It’s always on the Canada Day long weekend, and it always involves the same group of long-time friends: most of the gang, including Bee and Jake, met 30 years ago at nearby Keats summer camp when they were in their early teens.

“The camp thing—that’s our origin story,” says