Along Came a Spider|Riverview Hospital grounds, Coquitlam — the empty institution every thriller borrows

Drive up Lougheed Highway into Coquitlam and the trees give it away before the buildings do. Riverview's grounds hold an arboretum begun in 1911 by John Davidson, British Columbia's first provincial botanist — hundreds of species planted as a working collection, now grown into a century-old canopy over lawns that run down toward the Fraser. Under those trees sit the brick and stone pavilions of a psychiatric hospital that opened in 1913 and admitted its last patients in 2012.

The West Lawn Building is the one productions want. Long symmetrical wings, tall sash windows, an entrance that promises order and delivers something colder. Along Came a Spider filmed at Riverview, and so did an enormous share of everything else shot in this province — the site is probably the most heavily used single location in Hollywood North, precisely because an emptied institution reads as menace without any set dressing at all.

Be clear about what you can and cannot do here. The buildings are closed, fenced and monitored; people are caught trespassing regularly and it is not a mild offence. The grounds, roads and arboretum are open to the public in daylight, and that is genuinely the better visit. Walk the loop from the main gate and read the small metal tags on the trunks — sequoia, monkey puzzle, cedars planted by a botanist who expected them to outlive him and was right.

The land is under the stewardship of the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm First Nation, whose long-term plans for the site will change it, so the version you see now is provisional. Stand on the lawn below West Lawn late on an overcast afternoon, with the windows blank and the arboretum absolutely silent behind you, and you will understand why location managers keep coming back and why the province keeps arguing about what to do with it.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.