Two popular Canadian YouTube personalities died while attempting to save one of their girlfriends from being swept over a BC waterfall.
The three killed were Megan Scraper, Ryker Gamble and Alexey Lyakh. Gamble and Lyakh were two thirds of High On Life SundayFundayz, a group of friends who built a large social media following off filming their exploits in exotic locales. Scraper and Lyakh were longtime partners.
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According to the CBC, witnesses of the accident said that the crew was near the top of Shannon Falls near Squamish, BC, when Megan Scraper slipped and fell into the water. In an attempt to save her, Gamble and Lyakh dove in. All three were taken by the current over the falls. None of them survived.
Over the last few years the globe-trotting exploits of Gamble, Lyakh, and their friend Parker Heuser gained a massive following on social media. The crew had over a hundred thousand likes on their Facebook pages, were nearing half a million followers on YouTube, and over a million followers on Instagram. The posts that frequent their various social media pages feature the crew in different locales pulling stunts like diving from balconies into pools, front flipping over friends and cliff jumping.
On the Facebook page for High On Life, the crew says they have been friends since high school who, after graduating university, set out to travel the world together and film it. Tributes from family, friends, and fans have been pouring in for the three. One friend on Facebook described the three as “beautiful souls who touched the hearts and woke the minds of many.”
Last year Lyakh and Gamble found themselves in the news when they trespassed off a boardwalk in Yellowstone National Park to film a vlog. The stunt, and others like it, brought the crew much ire from the public who viewed them as disrespecting national treasures and saw them face misdemeanour charges.
The two men, who had traveled back to Vancouver prior to the controversy, issued an apology on their Facebook page and traveled back to Wyoming to face the music. Lyakh and Gamble were sentenced to seven days in prison and banned from accessing US public lands for five years.
The charges didn’t stop them from traveling, however, and the crew kept making videos. In an Instagram post from two weeks ago, Gamble spoke to his life’s philosophy—living life for the moment.
“There’s this common perception that as we grow older we need to become more serious,” Gamble wrote. “Life throws responsibilities and big tough decisions our way, and we need to act our age and work really really hard! I find I lose a sense of myself when I get into this kind of head space.”
“Because life isn’t about responsibilities, tough decisions and hard work, it’s about feeling bliss and living in the moment.”
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