Why Mel's Cabin From Virgin River Looks So Familiar
Fans are eating up every detail of "Virgin River," Netflix's romantic drama about a woman rebuilding her life in northern California. Based on the book series by Robyn Carr, "Virgin River" stars Alexandra Breckenridge as Mel Monroe — a midwife and nurse practitioner who moves to the small town of Virgin River, CA to start over. She finds love in hunky Marine vet turned restaurateur Jack (Martin Henderson), and gets elbow-deep in the secrets and scandals of a small town.
"Virgin River" has everything fans are looking for in a primetime soap. There are kidnappings, local crime bosses framing people for shootings, pregnancies, and car crashes. Mel weathers it all in her rustic yet well-appointed cabin. Oddly, this cabin has more credits than half the cast of "Virgin River." According to Movie Maps, it's the Caretaker's Cottage at Murdo Frazer Park, in North Vancouver. The Caretaker's Cottage has become a filming hotspot after many productions moved filming to Vancouver. Here's where else you've seen the recognizable cottage.
MacGyver's cabin
According to Vancouver is Awesome, the Caretaker's Cottage got its first big break in the '80s, when it appeared on screen MacGyver's cabin on "MacGyver." Perhaps best remembered now as the inspiration for "MacGruber," "MacGyver" starred Richard Dean Anderson as the titular MacGyver.
MacGyver works for the fictional Phoenix Foundation in Los Angeles, solving crises of the week and ensuring freedom for all Americans. He refuses to carry a gun, because his friend died after a shooting accident in childhood. Instead, MacGyver rigs explosives and various ingenious contraptions out of various household objects. As explained by the BBC, to "macgyver" something has become slang for fixing something in an odd or unusual way with the materials at hand.
MacGyver was rebooted in 2016, with Lucas Till in the eponymous role. The show ran for five seasons, and shared a universe with fellow CBS reboots "Hawaii Five-0" and "Magnum P.I." Sadly, the cabin was not asked to reprise its role in the reboot.
Lost Creek Ranger Station on Supernatural
Over its 15 seasons and up until its ending, "Supernatural" must have filmed every square inch of Vancouver, and Murdo Frazer Park is no exception. The Caretaker's Cottage stood in for the Lost Creek Ranger Station in the show's second episode ever, "Wendigo." The Canadian cottage is supposed to be in Colorado this time, where a wendigo has apparently eaten or kidnapped a backpacker.
This episode is crucial in the "Supernatural" mythos as it's the first time Sam and Dean truly become hunters in their own right. A week earlier, during the events of the pilot, Sam is brought back into Dean's life because their father has gone missing. It is while searching for their father that they discover the wendigo problem, and deciding to postpone the search for John Winchester is a big moment for the brothers. "Wendigo" sets up the Monster of the Week format for the rest of the series.
Mr. Gold's Cabin on Once Upon a Time
The Caretaker's Cottage was Rumpelstiltskin's home in the first season of "Once Upon a Time." The ABC Disney show ran for seven years and brought characters from classic fairy tales into the real world. Cast under a spell by the Evil Queen, the residents of Storybrooke, Maine don't know that they're actually the immortal characters of fable. "OUAT" starred Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan, a bail bondswoman who is also the only child of Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming (Josh Dallas).
In the Season 1 episode "Skin Deep," Mr. Gold (aka Rumpelstiltskin, played by Robert Carlyle) kidnaps Moe French and takes him to a remote cabin. There, he tortures Mr. French in order to try and find the whereabouts of a chipped cup that belonged to his lost love Belle (Emilie de Ravin). The two blame each other for Belle's apparent suicide, but in reality she is still alive. Regina, the evil queen, has Belle imprisoned under Storybrooke's hospital.
The Caretaker's Cottage is important to "OUAT" lore because it's where we first truly understand the ambivalent nature of Rumpelstiltskin. Belle's love for him redeems the character ultimately, a big theme of the show.
Two different remote cabins on The Flash
The Caretaker's Cottage was not one, but two reclusive weirdos' cabins on the CW Arrowverse show "The Flash." In Season 2, it was Henry Allen's cabin, where Flash's dad fled to after being freed from prison. The Caretaker's Cottage was also used as the Unabomber-esque hideout of Grace Gibbons, a.k.a. Cicada II.
Henry Allen and Grace Gibbons had very different needs for secluded cabin hideouts. Henry was wrongly accused of his wife's murder. And even after being exonerated, he stays isolated from all the people who thought him a murderer for years. Barry visits his dad at his cabin in the Season 2 episode "Rupture."
Grace Gibbons, on the other hand, needs a remote cabin because she is the supervillain Cicada, she is on a mission to kill every metahuman. Grace travels back to her own past to rescue her uncle Orlin. She takes him to her cabin to recover from the meta-human cure. But when Orlin suggested maybe dedicating your life to murderous revenge wasn't all it was cracked up to be, she killed him. She also absconds with her past self to the same remote cabin.