Land Without Magic

Travel Date:

Sunday, 23rd August 2015

Once upon a time I entered the town of Storybrooke, Maine. How I wish! Well, I wasn't part of the hit TV series, Once Upon A Time but being able to explore the fairy tale's fictional location, feels like you're part of the show.  It has been a highlight to my #CanadaRevisited series to visit the real and historic location of the program that is the seaside village of Steveston, in Richmond, British Columbia. This place is just 30 minutes away from Vancouver.

After our first activity of the day, the go karting, we headed our way to Steveston or the "Land Without Magic" as the TV series fans called it. As we drove through inside the village to find a place to park, the first thing I've noticed is the Storybrooke sign on the left side of the road. Then I said to myself that "I'm really in Storybrooke!". Later my brother found a good spot to park. We walked down the road towards the Storybrooke sign to find the tourism building to get some flyers.

While walking, I found a very familiar site! It's Mr. Gold's pawnshop. So surprised to see it and I told my family that this is Mr. Rumpelstiltskin's house, and he is one of the powerful characters in the story. His business establishment is one of the frequently featured locations in the show. I realized the path we stepped into was one of the common scenes in the show. It was awesome!

We reached that Storybrooke sign and discovered out that it's a cafe. Across the cafe is another well-known location of the show, it's Granny's Diner! It first appears in the second episode ("The Thing You Love Most") of the first season of Once Upon a Time. It's also the place where Little Riding Hood works as a waitress at her Grandma's restaurant. Then the place was recently shown in the first episode in the newly opened 5th season of the show called, "The Dark Swan."

Our next stop was the Tourist Centre, which is a Museum and a souvenir shop at the same time where I got a map and flyer about Once Upon A Time and the Stevenson's village. From the shop, I got my souvenir, a fridge magnet in one of the characters. At first, I was having a hard time choosing which character I would like to have. I ended up choosing Prince Charming among the rest like Emma, Regina, Snow White and Rumpelstiltskin. I also got a shirt colored gray with print "Welcome to Storybrooke!".

We walked on the same road to go towards to Fisherman's Wharf, which will be my next article. I was trying to remember the big building in the corner that is opposite the hardware store. I almost didn't recognize it because there is no clock. Later I reckoned, it was the Storybrooke's Public Library. The difference is, on the show it has a clock on top of it, and they also called the place as the Clock Tower. This place has first shown in the pilot episode and has appeared many, many times all throughout the show.

Another location in Stevenson's village that transformed into one of the Storybrooke landmarks is the Marine Garage. Based on article from www.stevestonlife.com, a part of being a significant setting for the ABC TV Series "Once Upon A Time", the Marine Garage could be the most photographed gas pumps in Richmond, BC. If not the entire North American continent. The author mentioned that the place was also used in the X-files TV program, to appear like the town of Kenwood, Tennessee in the "Miracle Ministry" episode.

I'm sure there are a lot more locations used for the show, but I only got took pictures those I can recall. Hopefully on my next visit there will be more locations and more pictures. Thank you my family in Canada for bringing me in this magical place!