The X-Files mythology, Ten Thirteen Interviews Database, and more

Posts Tagged ‘vancouver’

Oct
25
2026

Millennium 30th anniversary: The shooting locations map

One of the best things Chris Carter’s Ten Thirteen produced, Millennium‘s pilot, aired 30 years ago on October 25, 1996. It started a landmark 3-year journey for Frank Black and for television. After all these years, the show is still unique, radical and profound as ever. It feels like yesterday that The X-Files reached this milestone!

To celebrate this anniversary, I am proud to present a comprehensive guide to the shooting locations of the show, with some 177 locations across the show’s 67 episodes!

This is the first time the overwhelming majority of these locations have been identified.

This is the result of Jeoffrey Gaspard‘s fine work, combing through the episodes for clues and going through Google Street View, often diving back into captures from older dates, as many locations have since been demolished or extensively refurbished and are today unrecognisable. Still, a great majority can still be seen if you plan a trip to Vancouver or if you want to spend some time browsing through Street View alongside watching the episodes.

This is in complement to my The X-Files shooting locations map that I did back in 2018, which already included a handful of Millennium locations, for the occasion of visiting Vancouver. That X-Files map has recently been superseded by a more complete map by boggsfiles, which also made use of production documents they have been collecting.

For the hardcore fans, it’s even more entertaining to identify which locations are actually next to each other from different episodes, or to map the MM locations to the XF locations and see which ones were used multiple times (and for other series shot in Vancouver: Stargate, Battlestar Galactica…). The essential part is in the Vancouver area, along with some additional establishing shots elsewhere.

Find the Millennium shooting locations map here!

Find Jeoffrey’s sheet of locations here!

Here are some comparative examples of episode screenshots and location photos for just some of the locations identified. Some are iconic and recognisable from a whole scene, some are just glimpsed in a single shot.

1M01: Pilot: The Ruby Tip and 2M11: Goodbye Charlie: Crisis Center exterior

Location: Ashtrey Alley, Vancouver

A location reused several times, a back alley typical of Vancouver’s Gastown. Also used in The X-Files 3X23: Wetwired and 10X4: Home Again.

This is the first shot of the Pilot, the Frenchman heading to the Ruby Tip strip club:

This is also where Lara and Frank stand, watching in to the Crisis Center call center in Goodbye Charlie.

1M01: Pilot and 1M19: Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions: Parking of the Seattle Public Safety Building

Location: West Cordova Street & Granville Street, Vancouver

Frank and Bletch have their discussion on the ramp to the underground parking in the Pilot (“my gift, my curse”).

Later, in PPT&D, that same parking appears when Frank has a sighting of the angel Sammael; he runs up the ramp to find him and looks around on the surface. This is when the surroundings of the parking from outside are visible.

1M02: Gehenna and onwards: Yellow house

Location: 321 4th Avenue, New Westminster

A well-known location. Different house from the one used in the Pilot. Yes, this is the same house as in The X-Files 1X01: Deep Throat. It’s a private house.

1M15: Sacrament: St. John’s Church

Location: St. Mary’s Kerrisdale church, 2490 West 37th Avenue, Vancouver

This is the church in the beginning of the episode. Frank’s sister in law disappears.

1M19: Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions: Sammael shoots Al Pepper

Location: Whole Foods supermarket parking lot, 1675 Robson Street, Vancouver

One of the series’ most iconic shots. Pepper comes out of the supermarket and heads towards his car in the same parking lot.

2M02: Beware of the Dog: Bucksnort

Loction: Britannia Beach

All of the Bucksnort scenes were shot here. The mining museum can be seen in the background. Yes, it’s the same location as the Strughold Mine in The X-Files 3X02:Paper Clip. Beebe’s cabin and the Old Man’s cabin were shot elsewhere.

2M12: Luminary: lake front

Location: Buntzen Lake, Anmore

Frank lands with the hydroplane and later, when Alex “Ventoux” is rescued, Frank stays on the lake shore, watching the hydroplane take off.

Also used in 1M07: Blood Relatives, 3M07: Through a Glass, Darkly, 3M20: Nostalgia, as well as The X-Files 1X03: Conduit and 3X22: Quagmire.

2M21: Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me: parking scene

Location: Main & 14th plaza, Vancouver

The TV Standards & Practices censor has a psychological breakdown and sees things he wants to censor everywhere. This is unacceptable!

3X06: Skull and Bones: Park

Location: Victory Square, Vancouver

This is where Ed has his visions in the beginning of the episode.

This is actually the same spot where Frank meets Mike Atkins in 1X02: Gehenna and discuss the polaroids, and it’s just next to the Ruby Tip arch alley from the Pilot!

So, as we loop back… Enjoy, and don’t hesitate to contact me if you identify locations that are missing! The map is rich but not entirely complete.

After The Millennium

Meanwhile, you can also purchase the expanded and reworked fan passion project documentary “After the Millennium”. Remastered, remixed and with additional material including an all-new interview with Bill Smitrovich (Lt Bob Bletcher), it is over an hour longer than the original “Millennium After The Millennium” 2019 version.

You can order the BluRay here (spicy shipping costs to outside of the US!): https://deadendfilms.org/after-the-millennium/

Or stream it for free (in the US!) here: http://tubitv.com/movies/100054675/after-the-millennium

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Sep
10
2018

Vancouver, 25 years later!

No X-Files fan experience can be complete without a pilgrimage to where the series was shot!

Well, maybe these are strong words. You might not want to know too much about how the show was made, it might lose its magic. If the XF-vibe is not there, don’t blame Vancouver! Truth be told, the cinematographers and set designers had an important role to play, and visiting shooting locations after the fact may be underwhelming.

My travels recently took me to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where The X-Files‘ most memorable period was shot, seasons 1-5, so much so that it returned there for I Want To Believe and seasons 10-11; and where the other Ten Thirteen series were shot too, in particular Millennium. The (amateur) photos below are the result.

Past X-philes have done similar pilgrimages! A shout out to some favourites, that complete this article: TempusFugit; InvisiGoth; Fangirlquest.

If you ever plan to do something similar, here are some tips:

  • Plan your trip! “X Marks the Spot”, written by the series’ location managers Todd Pittson and Louisa Gradnitzer, will be your Bible (also, look at vintage fan sites X-Town or XF Marks The Spot, or Movie Maps). Placing your locations on Google Maps will help.

For this, I am sharing here my X-Files Filming Locations map to you!

  • Take into account travelling time! Traffic is a big, big issue, and distances that might look like next door will take time. You might end up spending a large part of your day between locations. And so, due to time constraints, honourable highlights that are absent below are the Ascension cable car, the Anasazi quarry, the Paper Clip Strughold mines, or the Patient X Ruskin dam.
  • Don’t go during the summer! When you think XF you think fog, rain, clouds, that moody atmosphere. In summer you will have sunlight and no rain (that’s very obvious when you watch season 10, unfortunately). And if you’re not lucky you will also have smoke from forest fires, which blows in the area and limits visibility dramatically! Unfortunately this was my case.
  • Not everything is accessible! The XF crew had privileged access to location to do their work, obviously. Some locations are private properties (Mulder’s father’s house, or the Mulders’ summer cottage). Many locations have restricted access only to people working there (like the Anasazi quarry, or the place where the train car blows up in 731, or the ending to EBE, or many of the docks locations). Some might be restricted because filming is taking place there, again (North Shore Studios of course, and filming often takes place in Riverview Hospital). Obviously, many interiors are completely out of reach. Choose your locations with that knowledge.
  • Not everything exists anymore! As much as 25 years have passed, and things change. Some places have been renovated and are still themselves, like the mining museum from Paper Clip; some places have just changed owners and look different, like the Washington diner where Skinner is shot in Piper Maru (now a fancy gourmet restaurant), the pub where Ed Jerse and Scully flirt in Never Again (now a well lit bakery-café), or the café where Mulder meets Samantha in Redux (now a photocopy shop); and some places are just gone, like the roadside diner from the end of Eve or the train building Mulder observes the Japanese scientists from in Nisei ! And this will be more and more the case as time passes.

We are reminded of the weight of time that passes as The X-Files celebrates its 25th anniversary. A quarter century has flown by and the world is certainly a different place from what it was, in so many aspects. The X-Files has definitely hit that transition point between “recent and fesh but not quite new” to “something from a generation ago and just fondly remembered”. I wish I could say that at least, paraphrasing Casablanca, “we’ll always have Vancouver” to “remember how it all was“; but Vancouver too is changing, as do all things. Still, there’s a lot still there!

So see for yourself below, 1993-1998 versus 2018. The Vancouver area is separated in sections — The city, The suburbs, The docks, The woods — and do read the captions.

The city

                                      

The suburbs

                                 

The docks

   

The woods

                                 

Bonus

 

Happy 25th anniversary, The X-Files!

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