Canby’s Eco Park will soon become a part of Hollywood history with its inclusion in the Oregon Film Trail — a statewide tour through notable filming locations and strategic points going back over 100 years.
While the Canby area has drawn many a director for film, television and commercial projects in the past, most of the settings have been on private land, whose owners may not want their properties advertised in a directory like the Film Trail.
“We had to be able to document something that was filmed here and filmed on public land,” said Councilor Sarah Spoon, who spearheaded the project with the help of city staff. “It’s hard to get a plaque on private land. Most landowners wouldn’t want their private property to be advertised as a destination to visit.”
But Eco Park, which is city-owned and open to the public, was in 2014 a setting for the popular NBC fantasy procedural series Grimm.
Its season 3 episode “Synchronicity,” which aired in April of that year, featured a number of locales from the park, which stood in for a European forest in the modern-day fairy tale adaptation.
The Canby Economic Development Department assisted the production’s crew to identify locations and provide access to other needed accommodations like parking to store trailers, equipment and crew facilities.
A film crew of 80 and eight actors spent 13 hours setting up and filming several scenes in the park’s disc golf course and a field near the Logging Road Trail. Other scenes from the episode were shot at the Aurora State Airport and a home and nursery in Molalla.
Producers said they liked the Canby site because it had the look of pristine wilderness but was easy to access, accommodating the wide variety of equipment needed for a professional television production.
A public celebration will be held at 3 p.m. Oct. 29 to celebrate the new designation and unveil the permanent plaque that will officially mark Eco Park as a stop on the Oregon Film Trail.
The event will be at the trailhead, located near the intersection of Northeast Territorial Road and the Logging Trail. All are welcome. Light refreshments will be served.
The partnership is an “exciting opportunity for Canby,” Spoon said.
“We have been developing the sense of place that makes Canby special,” she said. “This partnership, plaque and spot on the Oregon Film Trail map allows us to show the whole region how beautiful and unique our community truly is as we continue to establish and market our value as a destination worth visiting.”
Oregon Film created the Oregon Film Trail through a partnership with the Oregon Made Creative Foundation and other community partners. Its goal is to strengthen the correlation between the film and TV industries, economic development, tourism and local interests.
“We are grateful to our partners in Canby for helping us continue to recognize the importance of film tourism in Oregon,” said Oregon Film Executive Director Tim Williams.
“As the Oregon Film Trail continues to grow, our sign in Canby recognizes the importance of Grimm as just one show among many that filmed there and in other locations around Clackamas County and across the whole state.”
More than 500 feature films and television shows have been created in Oregon, utilizing thousands of locations around the state for a wide variety of production backdrops.
