Once Upon a Time in Fort Langley

Storybrooke had two main streets. Most fans know the one in Steveston, the fishing village in Richmond that played the town’s centre for the whole run. The other was fifty kilometres east on Glover Road, and it had something Steveston didn’t: the town hall.

Once Upon a Time was ABC’s fairy-tale drama. Snow White, Prince Charming, the Evil Queen and the rest are cursed into a small Maine town with no memory of who they are, until Snow’s grown daughter, Emma Swan, turns up. It ran from October 2011 to May 2018. For most of that time, whenever the story needed Storybrooke Town Hall, the crew drove out to Fort Langley.

Who played what

In Storybrooke	In Fort Langley	When reported
Storybrooke Town Hall	Fort Langley Community Hall, Glover Road	2011 to 2017
Main street scenes	Glover Road, from the hall towards the Gasoline Alley entrance	2011 onward
Storybrooke Savings & Loan	The Coast Capital Savings branch on Glover Road	2011, 2015
The “Everything” Notions Store	A Glover Road shop with show signage over its own	2011, 2015
Storybrooke Produce Co.	Cafe Planet Java, a 1950s-style café	2015
The Polar Star Intercity bus stop	The village community bus stop	2015

The method was the same one used in Steveston: the crew hung its own signs over the real ones. Wikipedia’s production notes add that brightly coloured things like flowers were usually hidden to keep the cursed town looking drab, though on one snowy 2017 shoot the crew added out-of-season flowers to the shot instead. Shop names and tenants in the village change, so treat the right-hand column as “as it was at the time.”

Year by year

2011 (season 1). The show found Fort Langley in its first autumn. In October 2011 the hall was hung with a “Debate Today” banner and “Swan for Sheriff” posters for the sheriff election in “Desperate Souls,” which aired January 8, 2012. In December the crew put up a fair on the lawn, under a “Miners Day is Here!” banner, for Grumpy’s backstory episode “Dreamy” (aired March 4, 2012). The same week a steadicam followed Jennifer Morrison and Ginnifer Goodwin on a walk-and-talk from the hall to Gasoline Alley, and Goodwin went back that night to shoot on a rooftop in the rain with Lee Arenberg.

2012 (season 2). In July the hall’s windows were boarded up and the lawn turned into a relief centre handing out blankets, water and toilet paper, the aftermath of the magic that swept the town. That’s the opening of “We Are Both,” which aired October 7, 2012, and it’s where Prince Charming gives his “we are both” speech to the frightened townspeople.

2013 (seasons 2 and 3). On February 12, the Blue Fairy turned the dying, wooden August back into the boy Pinocchio outside the town hall, with Glover Road closed at both ends. The episode, “Selfless, Brave and True,” aired March 24, 2013. In early December the cast was back for the first time in season 3, finishing with a cold night shoot of Emma and Regina talking in Emma’s yellow Beetle.

2015 (season 4). A big February visit. The Charmings, Hook and Henry waved Emma and Regina off from outside the town hall on a road trip in the Beetle, while fans watched from across Glover Road. Down the street, Rumplestiltskin got out of his car at Storybrooke Produce to see Belle walking hand in hand with Will Scarlet.

2016 (seasons 5 and 6). In March, Hollywood North Buzz called it the show’s “annual seasonal visit,” with Merida joining the cast at the hall; ABC renewed the series for season 6 during the shoot. In July the season 6 premiere was filmed here: Mr. Hyde takes over Regina’s office, and in the fight a stunt double lands on her Mercedes.

2017 (season 6). On Valentine’s Day, in the snow, Snow and Charming came out of the town hall mid-argument, followed by Hook, Emma and Henry. It’s the last Fort Langley shoot we could document; we found no village reports from the seventh and final season.

Jamestown, too

The MacInnes family, whose north Langley farm holds the Jamestown western set, lists Once Upon a Time among the productions shot on it. We couldn’t find which episode, so we won’t guess. The set is private and closed to visitors outside public events.

Visiting today

The hall is the reason to come. It’s the Fort Langley Community Hall, built in 1932 and still a rental hall used for village events, so check for a wedding or market before you plan a quiet photo. The best photo is the one the fans used: from the sidewalk on the far side of Glover Road, looking straight at the columns.

From there, walk Glover Road towards Gasoline Alley to follow the 2011 walk-and-talk, and look out for the heritage-style building in the photo at the top of this page, which was the bank branch at the time. It’s all within a couple of blocks. The village has street parking and a few lots; our Fort Langley village guide has the details, plus food and the national historic site for the rest of the afternoon.

The same hall also played Riverdale’s town hall, and the Winchesters parked the Impala outside it, so you can tick off three shows from one spot. See Riverdale in Langley and Supernatural in Langley.

Back to all TV shows filmed in Langley.