Seen as the U.S. Naval Station in season four’s ‘Renegade’ episode, this real life naval station is located on the small, menacingly named Dead Mans Island next to Vancouver’s Stanley Park.
Jump straight to the video and photo gallery
The facility was originally established in 1924 as HMCS Discovery at the Stanley Park Barracks as a training base for the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve where is was used for recruitment and training, and provided almost 8,000 personnel during the war. HMCS Discovery continued in its training role following the war, and was move to it’s current location on Deadman’s Island adjacent to Stanley Park in 1944 where it continues to serve as headquarters for several Reserve and Cadet units.
The base is accessed by a single gated and secured road to the island and is made up of several buildings which we see in the episode. The main administration building is used in the establishing shot with the sign out front. The internal scenes, where MacGyver and Pete talk to Commander Hilliard, were filmed in the drill hall while the external scenes of MacGyver picking up Steve Morrison from the hospital were filmed at the Naval museum building located behind the drill hall.
Because the base is landlocked and not an actual sea-going ship it is by Naval tradition called a “stone frigate. The stone frigate takes its name from the Royal Navy sloop HMS Discovery, the ship used by George Vancouver to chart most of North America’s north-western coast in the late 18th century. The facility was later renamed HMCS Discovery Naval Reserve, and it continues to serve as a training center for both regular and reserve members of the Canadian Armed Forces where a variety of training programs, including basic seamanship, navigation, and gunnery are provided. It also provides training in more specialized areas, such as diving, mine clearance, and search and rescue.
The base is an active naval training base and as such is off limits to the general public, although, every few years it will have an open day and give guided tours for the public to explore Canada’s proud naval history.
GALLERY:
Photos by: KiwiTek & DashboardOnFire (some photos sourced from internet)
Naval, not navel