The neighbourhoods of North Toronto mean many things to many people. To some, they are a place to find a condo close to downtown, to others they are communities in which to raise kids, and for others still they are a place to grow old in style.
For the host of CBC’s Canada’s Smartest Person and former Rosedale resident Jessi Cruickshank, the area will always be a place to get away from it all.
Cruickshank moved to the area around the time she came to fame as a quick-witted presenter on MTV, the youth-oriented music channel. Having lived in the Annex since she moved to Toronto to study at U of T — or as she puts it, “long enough to have tried every sushi restaurant on Bloor” — Rosedale was a dramatic change of pace.
“I was a bit ahead of my time because I wasn’t a wealthy retiree,” says Cruickshank. “But I really loved the quiet.”
Since the well-heeled ladies of Rosedale are not exactly MTV’s core demographic, Cruickshank enjoyed being just another face in the crowd as she indulged her passion for vintage finds in the boutiques that line the streets just north of Bloor.
“The Cat’s Meow is where I have found some of my most prized vintage possessions, like a one-of-a-kind Oscar de la Renta summer dress and Emmanuelle Kahnh snakeskin sunglasses from the 1950s,” she says.
Cruickshank is currently gearing up for the second season of Canada’s Smartest Person, the hit CBC show that she hosts, which returns in the fall.
Back in the day, a decent showing at the New York Times crossword and knowing the name of the world’s third highest peak (Kangchenjunga) were pretty much all it took to pass as the smartest person in the room. But times have changed, and the CBC show is now a veritable assault course of weird and wonderful challenges.
Canada’s Smartest Person is predicated on the idea that there are multiple types of intelligence, not just the elbow patch–wearing, Homer-quoting professor kind.
Alongside the analytical skills that might get you a PhD, some psychologists define seven or eight other sorts of smarts, including interpersonal, physical and linguistic intelligences. Each week the show pits contestants against one another in a series of tasks designed to test one or more of these. In season one, competitors faced challenges as eclectic as guiding a laser through a maze (critical thinking) and inventing a song on the spot (musical smarts).
Talking to Cruickshank, you get the feeling she would score well on a classic IQ test. She graduated from U of T with a double major — in English and drama; not, as she puts it, the most useful degrees — and has a razor-sharp wit that makes her genuinely fun to chat with.
Although she claims to flail around miserably at many of the challenges when she tries them backstage, she admits they have thrown up some interesting insights.
She scores well on the tasks designed to measure social intelligence, which you might expect from someone who makes a living interviewing celebrities on TV, but she also does well in another area.
“Stunningly, to myself and anybody who has heard me sing, I’m actually good at the musical challenges,” she says.
“I was in a church choir at six or seven years old, so maybe it trained my brain at a young age.”
Canada’s Smartest Person started as a one-off show before debuting its first full season last fall. In both the special and season one, the ultimate winners were both men from B.C.
Having been born in Calgary (in an A&W restaurant, no less) and brought up in Vancouver, it appeals to her western Canada pride that the smartest people have both come from that side of the country. But she does admit to secretly hoping the next winner is a woman. Although pointing out she is supposed to be unbiased, deep down, she says, “of course I am totally rooting for the girls.”
“The dream would be for the final to be a guy and a girl going up against each other. It would be the ultimate battle of the sexes.”
Cruickshank moved to California four years ago and took up a position as Los Angeles correspondent for CTV’s entertainment show etalk, for which she interviews major celebrities. And she does so with an engagingly goofy style that suggests she doesn’t take herself too seriously.
When we talk, it is at the height of the buzz surrounding stripper movie Magic Mike XXL, and Cruickshank is fresh off interviewing Matt Bomer and Donald Glover.She turned up with a fist full of dollar bills stuffed down her top and took the opportunity to have a feel of Glover’s chest. “You can’t expect to put me in front of guys who are playing male strippers and not get a little action,” she says.
She will, however, be back spending a lot of time north of the border in the fall. She will be back in town to record Canada’s Smartest Person and cover the Toronto International Film Festival in September for etalk. And she is looking forward to spending time here.
These days, when she is in Toronto, she lives on King West downtown, where she gets to be in the heart of whatever is going on.
“You know FOMO [fear of missing out]? I never have that. I know what’s happening in the city just by looking out of my window,” she says.
Having lived in the Annex, in Rosedale and now further downtown, Cruickshank has seen many faces of this city, and it’s clear she loves them all.
“My heart is in Toronto. To me, it’s the best place I have ever lived.”
