Actor of Shazam!, Heartland fame living off-grid with partner in Burnt River
RODERICK BENNS Publisher
Caroline Palmer has appeared on hit TV shows such as Mr. D, Workin’ Moms, Suits, and even the 2019 DC Comics’ blockbuster, Shazam! She must live in Hollywood or Toronto, right? As it turns out, most of this star’s days are spent in a location a tad more rural: Burnt River, Kawartha Lakes. Not only do she and her husband, Mike Palmer (and their dog, Tobias), live in Burnt River, though — they’re also doing so off-grid, with no electricity or running water. Depending on the time of year, you might find Caroline and Mike chopping wood, picking cucumbers or clearing brush. On four remote acres, under soaring red pines that seem to scrape dull November skies, this is not the life you’d expect an actor to be living. But Kawartha Lakes holds a special place in Torontoraised Caroline’s heart because she remembers spending “almost every summer” at Wychwood Resort in Fenelon Falls, and sometimes at camp in Haliburton on Lake Kashagawigamog. “My dad instilled his love of the outdoors in us,” she says. She also happened to marry someone who has family in Bethany. Mike’s parents have a “country retreat” there and so the family was familiar with life north of Toronto. Polish-born, Caroline spent a couple of early years in Berlin, Germany, before moving to Toronto with her family at a young age. Although well-known as an actor now, she says her path to that career “was anything but linear.” “When high school ended, I went to Western University to study business and get ‘a real job,’” she says. And she did. She worked in advertising and later as the marketing director of Toronto Life magazine, while also completing her MBA at Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto in the evenings. CONT’D ON PAGE 14
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