From Supernatural to the Fans: Photos from Vancouver

Courtesy of Allan Ross of the Supernatural Locations department, we’re sharing some of the photos that Allan took on the location tours from Creation’s VanCon this summer. We chatted with Allan during the bus ride through Vancouver’s beauty, sharing our thoughts on fandom and hearing his — which, as we’ve found with everyone we’ve talked to from Show, are uniformly positive. We had a great time with Allan, and he was kind enough to turn the tables and take some photos of us, the fans, instead of the usual when we’re the ones behind the camera. He’s asked us to post some of them here to share with all you guys — Allan and Russ had a blast doing the tours and getting to know the fans. (Of course — we rock, after all 🙂

Over the past two years, we’ve chatted with so many of the wonderful folks who bring SPN to life, and heard their thoughts on the show and its fans — coming soon, we’ll share some excerpts from Fangasm the book so you can hear them too. Of course, we asked all of them questions nobody else ever does, which might explain why we’ve gotten ourselves into so many amusing (okay, and occasionally embarrassing….) situations in the course of our Supernatural roadtrip — errr, research. Stay tuned for bits of our chats with Jason, Steve, Sera, Eric, Misha, Jared, Jensen, and many more.

But for now, photos! We’ll need some help with identifying a few of these location shots, since we were on the Thursday tour but not the Monday one. However, we recognize some of our good friends on the Monday shots, so we’re hoping you’ll come through and tell the rest of us what we’re looking at!

First up: the Arundel Hotel, where it’s no longer spoilery to say the boys watched Castiel take a dive out the window and squash Sam’s car. (Oh how we loved Dean’s deadpanned “okay, silver lining.” What? Sam belongs riding shotgun in the Impala!) You can see the broken window and how high up that actually is. Russ said the hardest thing about filming there was trying to time the shoot around the train schedule, as the tracks run right by the hotel. The things you never think about unless you’re in film-making!

Fans gather on a typical Vancouver morning in the field where “Samifer” beat the crap out of Dean in “Swan Song”.

Thursday tour at the closed off entrance to the Albion Ferry bridge, where Bobby met up with the helpful sheriff in “Weekend at Bobby’s” (See our previous Locations post for more details). On our very first trip to Vancouver three years ago, we took the ferry as we wandered around doing our own (not nearly as successful) version of location touring — if you look closely, you can still see the painted instructions on the roadway telling anyone on a motorcyle where they should be lining up to wait for the ferry’s arrival. We remember the trip across the water as being a bit of a nail biter, but maybe that’s because it was almost midnight by the time we got on it. Doing your own scouting for past filming locations is time consuming. And we’re not exactly known for our awesome sense of direction….

One more Thursday tour photo at Albion Ferry, with the white crew tent they set up for us in the background for our awesome lunch. We’re still tickled that the crew whipped up delicious corn chowder and some of them actually baked for us, then walked around the tent offering up their brownies and cookies. It felt like an opportunity for the crew to show some fan appreciation, and the genuineness of it was definitely smile-inducing. 🙂

Inside The Metro, the swingers club in downtown Vancouver used for “Hammer of the Gods”. It was suitably dark inside, so the photos are grainy and hard to see. Which somehow seems completely appropriate. It should be noted that Lynn missed most of whatever interesting things Russ said here, since her children decided that would be the right time to call with various and sundry domestic emergencies. And for some reason, she couldn’t just say hey, not a good time, kids – I’m at a swingers club!

On our way up to the iconic field where Dean clawed his way out of the grave in “Lazarus Rising”. Is Vancouver not amazingly beautiful??

Gathered around Russ-on-the-spot

A particularly artistic photo by Allan…

Fans gather to listen to Russ in front of the Burr House, Sam’s Thanksgiving memory from “Dark Side of the Moon”. Once we’d all had a tour, Allan was kind enough to take turns snapping photos with the fans’ cameras so everyone could have a group shot. If you have any you’d like to share, feel free to send them to us!

Okay, Monday tour folks — where are you here?? We can see a few people we know, so hopefully someone will chime in and tell us!

More from Monday — what the heck is this creepy hallway??

And this crazy neon lighted place that looks like it’s right out of the disco era??

Fandom??

Derby Reach National Park, where Jensen’s directorial debut was filmed. That second shot became the cemetary in Scotland, where Dean and Sam threatened to burn Crowley’s bones. (And how much did we love the boys squeezed into that tiny European car instead of the roomy Impala?)

That’s all for now, folks — thanks to Allan Ross of Supernatural’s locations department for the photos 🙂

NOTE: these are all group shots, but if anyone is uncomfortable with their image being posted, even from afar, just let us know.