Blue Nile Painting Ltd.

Husband and wife – and owners of Blue Nile Painting LTD. – Sameh Said and Pamella Heikel were both far from home when they first crossed paths in Paris, France. Sameh is originally from Egypt and worked in Saudi Arabia for three years before moving to Paris. “The minute I got my feet off the train, I just loved it," he says. "I stayed in Paris for five years, and that’s where I learned painting.”

In 2009, Pamella and her friend planned a month-long trip to Europe. “The very first night, we landed in Paris and I saw Sam,” she says. She did her best to keep in touch with him as she and her friend finished their travels. “He didn’t know English. I didn’t know Arabic.  I had a little bit of French, but he had more,”  she says. After the month was over, she told her friend she wasn’t going home and stayed in France for three more months. In 2009, they made the decision that Sameh would immigrate to Canada.