“He said it’s not over. The evil is still here.” –Maggie Holvey, The X-Files S2E21 “The Calusari”
As I gaze out over the clear night sky from my chair in the backyard, I can’t help but feel apprehensive. I want to see the stars, but I really don’t want to see anything else. But it’s not up to me! I’ve seen The X-Files, I know the deal. You stargaze, you see an alien spacecraft, nobody believes you, you go crazy, an FBI agent comes to visit you at the asylum, but you disappear before you can tell him what happened.
Okay, maybe that’s a bit fantastical. But that show stuck with me: the infinity of the universe, the darkness, the glowing light… all on the backdrop I’ve shared with them my whole life. In the first episode of The X-Files, there is a shot that takes place on Fourth Street and Fifth Avenue in New Westminster, just one block from my childhood home!
Our city is a chameleon. The X-Files turned the Lower Mainland into the whole world. Surrey as Maine, New Westminster as Boston, Vancouver as a random city in China. Or DC. Or South America.
My favourite X-Files location means a lot to me because of its proximity to where I grew up. It’s the house from the exorcism episode (season 2, episode 21, The Calusari).
You can find it at 417 Fifth Street, New Westminster.
When I was a kid, my dad, brother, and I used to ride by the house on our bikes. As kids we hadn’t seen the show, but the place still gave us the creeps. There was a big sign from a company called Gemlevy in the front yard, so we called it Gemlevy Manor, and we believed it was haunted. Word travelled through the neighbourhood, and other kids got on board. We’d ride low over our handlebars, crouching down so our heads wouldn’t appear above the hedge.
I wonder: did the X-Files location scouts feel the same sense of doom we did when we rode our bikes past Gemlevy Manor? Could the house really be haunted? Or is it just an old-fashioned manor house? In New Westminster, old builds are a dime a dozen. But there’s something special about Gemlevy Manor: its stately build, dramatic columns, and white exterior give it a dignified, but aloof aura.
The X-Files changed how I see a lot of the lower mainland: visiting my grandma in White Rock reminds me of Scully on her Maine vacation, the Clark drive overpass near (now-defunct) underground venue 333 unsettles me (Deep Throat died there), and when I go skating at Robson Square, I always pay for a locker, to feel like I’m making a covert drop in DC.
What’s the most important X-Files location in your life?