Excellent adventure

VANCOUVER, B.C. – The truth is out here, everywhere. Just ask FBI agents Scully and Mulder.

Why watch reruns of the cult-popular “X-Files” when you can see the real thing? The first five of its nine seasons – the glory years, fans say – were filmed in this booming, beautiful Canadian Pacific metropolis.

See the show. You’re seeing Vancouver.

“X” truly marks the spots.

The TV series about paranormal investigations began shooting here in March 1993 and stayed until April 1998. “The X-Files” started on a shoestring, and filming in Vancouver has long been a cheaper alternative to Los Angeles. Plus there’s the scenery for location shots: the Pacific coast, the Coastal Mountains, plentiful parks and gorgeous gardens.

Roughly 2 million people live in metro Vancouver, which has taken care over the years to preserve huge chunks of its past. There’s the third-largest Chinatown in North America. There are docks and rail yards. There are brand-new skyscrapers and others that date to the 1920s. There’s an assortment of well-kept neighborhoods of different vintages and styles, all suitable for filming.

And then there’s the vibe. Vancouver is Canada’s Southern California – a temperate rain forest that beckons loonies and losers, yuppies and financiers.

Sunshine and rain come and go repeatedly in the course of hours. The downpours, drizzles and fog play well to “X-Files” edginess, and this far north – as close to the Pole as Labrador – shadows are in play even at noon. That, too, worked well for a fade-to-gray program that loved to dangle loose ends and unanswered questions.

Aliens, monsters, UFO cover-ups – viewers embraced it all. David Duchovny (FBI agent Fox Mulder) and Gillian Anderson (agent Dana Scully) became stars; creator Chris Carter had a hit on his hands.

Scenes of Vancouver, regardless of how they were disguised, were in a top-ranked show. There were 118 episodes shot here, and each used 40 to 60 locations.

The best way to tour “X” town? Buy “X Marks the Spot: On Location With ‘The X-Files’,” a 184-page guide to much of what was filmed here. It was written by Louisa Gradnitzer and Todd Pittson, location scouts for the show’s Vancouver years.

Pick it up at the enormous Chapters bookstore at Robson and Howe streets. (Not much of a fan? Get it anyhow, as a Vancouver souvenir for your fan back home.)

Now explore Vancouver and take the book with you: Wherever you go, “X” piles abound.

Robson Street

Downtown Vancouver is on a peninsula facing Burrard Inlet to the north and English Bay and the False Creek inlet behind. Aside from Van Dusen Botanical Garden, most anything a short-timer will want to see is in or near the area.

And that’s good. Folks here aren’t big on freeways; it’s a 25-minute ride on stop-and-go streets to reach the center city from the airport. That said, downtown is pedestrian-friendly, clean and green. Even the many panhandlers are polite.

Robson Street is a great place to start. It’s a wide, leafy, Euro-looking boulevard lined with stores and cafes. Check the upscale specialty stores around Burrard Street (like Salvatore Ferragamo’s for leather).

The UBC Robson Square Conference Center at Hornby Street (800 Robson) turned up in the “Unusual Suspects” episode, and its amphitheater was dressed as Mission Control for the “Space” episode.

You may have seen Robson Square park in “Ascension,” or its covered skating rink – a key site in “Apocrypha,” a famed Lone Gunmen episode.

At Hornby Street, stroll a half-block north, toward Georgia Street and the Vancouver Art Gallery. Enjoy its collection of Native American art. And be aware the rotunda doubled as the Smithsonian Institution in “Gethsemane.”

Downtown

Move north a couple blocks to the pre-World War II downtown, where modern high-rises are set among well-kept megaliths built in the 1920s. The oldies, done in art deco, beaux arts and other styles, are beautifully preserved – an eye-feast for anyone who loves architecture.

Vancouver has a policy that modern buildings must provide a certain amount of greenery, and the taller the structure, the nicer the garden areas surrounding it. Above all, this downtown is strikingly litter-free.

Area banks were perfectly fine with after-hours “X” filming, and the Bank of Montreal at Granville and West Pender streets hosted a staged robbery in “Lazarus.” Realistic? Some passers-by became alarmed. So when a robbery needed staging in season five’s “The Pine Bluff Variant,” the show opted for the vacant Bank of Canada building at 900 W. Hastings.

Granville Square was the lobby of the FBI building in “Pusher.” B.C. Hydro’s headquarters at 333 Dunsmuir St. was the FBI lobby and lab in “The X-Files” pilot.

One of the most splendid sites is the 14-story Dominion Building, a landmark that was the tallest building in the British Empire the year it was constructed (1910). The mansard roof is itself three stories. Look familiar? The exterior was used as a Baltimore newspaper office in “Unusual Suspects.”

The Dominion (207 W. Hastings St.) faces Victory Square, which is ringed by heritage buildings. Developers aren’t welcomed; urban homesteaders are. Nonetheless, Victory Alley right next to it was dressed as a drug haunt in “Wetwired.”

Gastown

Continue east along Pender or Cordova and – like all the cruise vacationers doing shore trips in Vancouver – you’ll enter Gastown, where eateries, bars and tourist traps await. It’s the oldest area in the city (named for “Gassy Jack” Deighton, an early character there).

The Victorian storefronts are complemented by cobblestone streets and an outdoor steam clock, but shopping is geared to T-shirts and trinkets. The dining is not exceptional. Along the way, you’ll pass the all-new Storyeum, an interactive, kid-friendly museum at Abbott Street, where time-framed exhibits are actually walk-on sets with interpreters, singers and dancers.

As a “scene,” Gastown fades quickly after sundown. As scenery for “The X-Files,” Gastown got a good workout.

You’ll first pass the onetime The Meat Market at 1 W. Cordova, a restaurant/tavern seen in “Flying Saucer Diner” and where FBI Chief Skinner was shot in “Piper Maru.”

At 81 W. Pender is Two-Jays Cafe, whose quintessential diner exterior was seen as the insides of a rural truck stop in “Sleepless.” It’s also where Mulder was paid a visit by his sister Samantha in “Redux II.”

In the same episode, the 400 block of West Cordova was a stand-in for the cobbled Georgetown area of Washington, D.C. It is where Mulder and the Cigarette Smoking Man strolled, where the exterior of the latter’s apartment was located – and where he was shot by a sniper from across the street.

To the east

Gastown trails off into a seamy-looking post-industrial area that’s rated “X.”

Main Service Automobile Centre at 298 Alexander St. played a car-repair shop in “Blood,” and the Evelyn Saller Centre one block east portrayed a hospital in the same episode.

Fiona MacIntosh refers to this area as being “gentrified behind bars.” She’s an aspiring actress from New Zealand who works at the Alibi Room, a lounge and eatery at 157 Alexander St. you might pass twice without noticing. But do take note.

This northeast corner of downtown isn’t as down-at-the-heels as it might appear. Old machine shops house independent film companies, and you’re apt to see carts and trucks filled with camera and lighting rigs.

The Alibi is aswirl in all this. It’s owned in part by “X-Files” co-star Anderson and actor Jason Priestly. Celebs like Mel Gibson and Luke Perry have swung by when filming in Vancouver. Music biggies are also attracted to the industrial-chic look; R.E.M. came in to relax last year.

Toward Chinatown

Continue south to Chinatown and beyond. “The X-Files” is here, too. The outside of the Ovaltine Cafe at 251 E. Hastings St. looks much as it did in “Diner.” Nearby, the Ho-Ho Chop Suey House at 102 E. Pender St. still looks like the Chinese restaurant it played in “Piper Maru.” (Ho-Ho Chop Suey also turned up in “Hell Money,” an episode that made heavy use of Chinatown locations.)

There’s more to the eight-block Chinatown than “X”-rated attractions. All along its East Pender Street hub, grocers roll bins, tables and wagons filled with Oriental produce and meat to the sidewalk. The look and aroma is exotic.

Also worth seeing is Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Garden at Keefer Place and Carrall Street. The urban hurly-burly recedes within its high walls; tour guides point out how the various plantings and assorted flourishes are painstakingly situated to create the yin-yang celestial harmony of Oriental philosophy – so unlike the random weirdness that dogs the world of Scully and Mulder.

Cross Livingston Park to what remains of the 1986 Expo grounds. Got preteens? They’ll enjoy the hands-on Science World museum.

You’ll run into few people here most days – it has a wistful, post-Expo feel – but swing by General Motors Place, the home arena of the enormously popular Vancouver Canucks hockey team. The venue was packed with thousands of extras for the last “X-Files” shot in Vancouver, appropriately titled “The End.”

Save your feet

A lot of sites, a lot of walking. You may want to take an X Tour, the three-hour drive-around that hits assorted high spots.

The tours are conducted by someone who has truly lived “The X-Files.” Boyd McConnell, a 50-year-old former investment banker, lives at 1419 Pendrell St., a quaint brick building in the attractive West End area near downtown. During Vancouver’s Expo 1986, he rented the place, and it proved to be a popular roost; actress Darryl Hannah was among those who stayed there. McConnell retooled the building into Pendrell Suites inn.

“X-File” scouts liked the look, too – six units spacious enough to hold film crews, all with ample natural light. The exterior matched the interior of Scully’s apartment, a soundstage elsewhere in Vancouver. Moreover, Pendrell Suites could be leased on short notice.

In season two, it became Scully’s apartment (danged if she wasn’t abducted from a first-floor window there). She “lived” here through the show’s Vancouver years. In many ways, it is ground zero for “X” fans.

McConnell’s tours end here. One of his recent customers was Seiko Nakano, a 26-year-old hotel worker from Japan who was in Canada for a yearlong vacation. She was clearly an X-pert.

” ‘X-Files’ is very, very popular in Japan,” Nakano said. “People in Japan are fully aware that the show was filmed in Vancouver. And we all think the quality of ‘X-Files’ went down after it moved to Los Angeles. But I don’t think my friends are aware that those other things were filmed here.”

She was quite intrigued about “Romeo Must Die,” the action film Jet Li made here in 2000. Key scenes were filmed at McConnell’s Pendrell Suites. Other movies have been, too.

And yes, McConnell still rents suites to travelers as well as film crews. One recent guest was TV producer Ron Moore, who was working on an updated “Battlestar Galactica.” Its tentative TV liftoff will be this winter.