Set up on a farm near Langley, BC, Hope Valley is a place that feels about as real as it can get for not actually being a frontier settlement. Outbuildings stay up year round and sets can be swapped to fit a lot of different types of business, homesteads and more. Stepping foot on set is a charming and austere experience, and beautiful, too, given its backdrop of mossy trees and mountains, but for the cast of the new When Calls The Heart spinoff, Hope Valley: 1874, the experience was so much more than that.
While WCTH films during the most prime of West Coast months, 1874 is darker, grittier, and for the actors, very cold. The spinoff kicked off in the heart of winter in British Columbia. The skies were grey. The set was muddy. It was often very wet. You wouldn't necessarily know it from the first looks we've seen of Hope Valley: 1874, but for new series lead Benjamin Ayres, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
