Anderson was born in Ladysmith ( British Columbia ) , a town 90 km northwest of Victoria , British Columbia , the daughter of Carol , a waitress , and Barry Anderson, a furnace repairman . His great-grandfather , Juho Hyytiäinen , was Finnish , a native of Saarijärvi , and left Finland in 1908 , changing his name to Anderson when he arrived as an immigrant . Anderson has Dutch ancestry on his mother's side .
The newborn Anderson won fame as the " Centennial Baby " from Canada, because they thought she was the first baby born on Canada 's Centennial Day (she was born at 4:08 am) . However, the Campbell River Upper Islander of July 5, 1967 reported a baby born two hours earlier on the same Canada Day. After his birth , his parents and his brother , Gerry Anderson , moved to the town of Comox with Pamela.
After graduating from Highland Secondary School École in 1985 , Anderson moved to Vancouver and worked as a fitness instructor . During the summer of 1989 , Pamela went with her friends to a round of the BC Lions at BC Place Stadium , sometime during the football game was shown on the stadium screen wearing a shirt of Labatt , a brand Canadian beer , causing the crowd to scream . They made it down to the field to receive an ovation from the crowd. Labatt offered a modeling contract and she accepted. In late 1989 , Pamela decided to pose for erotic magazine Playboy : She appeared on the October 1989 cover (credited as Pamela Anderson Ilicic ) and decided to move to Los Angeles to continue her modeling career . It was in February 1990 playmate and has appeared in Playboy many times ( 12) in the 1990s and in the next.