.jpg)
HBO's The Last of Us might see Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) traversing the overgrown ruins of post-apocalyptic America, but if you want to visit the (pre-Cordyceps, naturally) shooting locations you'll have to go north of the border to Canada. Yes, you heard right: like manifold productions before it — Marvel Studios famously shoots a lot of its New York scenes in Atlanta, Georgia — the creative team behind the hit show used locational stand-ins for the likes of Boston, Salt Lake City and Austin. The Last of Us was, in fact, the largest film production in the history of the Canadian province Alberta.
Of course, it'll be difficult to hit up Bill and Frank's Town or the Boston Quarantine Zone, given they were built entirely from scratch for the TV show on a backlot — and have likely been dismantled since, as tends to be the case with big-budget productions. “It took a couple of months to build the QZ, all told,” Emmy-nominated production designer John Paino told Vanity Fair back in January. “When you go to major areas, cities, states, there's always a liminal area that used to be an army base, or maybe it was an old factory. We couldn't find any of that [in Canada].”
Nevertheless, there are still plenty of shooting spots you can hit up on your next trip to Alberta, from the sleepy towns of High River and Fort Macleod, right through to Calgary, the province's major metropolis. Here's our guide to the best of them — duct tape and molotovs not required.
Top tip: the Travel Alberta website includes a helpful map with pins for every shot-specific shooting location in the region, presuming you have a couple of weeks or so to explore it all.
The small town of High River, approximately 42 miles south of Calgary, was one of the main shooting locations used for the Austin suburbs in the first episode of The Last of Us (more specifically, the prologue before the world goes to shite).
It's here you can find the cul-de-sac that stood in for Joel, Sarah and Tommy's neighbourhood, the highway leading out of town, and the diner — reportedly Evelyn's Memory Lane Diner — where Joel and Sarah are chased by an infected.
According to the official Travel Alberta website, Bill and Frank's town was built in a former High River residential area called the Beachwood Estates, abandoned after a devastating flood in 2013.
With its cutesy historical main street that would make any Disney theme park blush, Fort Macleod has been the centre of countless film productions, from Brokeback Mountain to Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
Add The Last of Us to that list now, too: located just two hours south of Calgary, the town was heavily featured in the series' first episode, albeit amid the utter disarray of Outbreak Day.
An old antique store served as the watch repair store where Sarah gets Joel's watch fixed for his birthday, with buildings CG'd into the background of the relatively sparse street.
One of Alberta's biggest cities — but not its capital, Geography A-level hats on — was used extensively for shooting on the HBO show. In episode two, for example, Calgary's Hotel Arts stood in for the colonial museum in Boston in which Joel, Tess (Anna Torv) and Ellie fought off a duo of Clickers.
Later on in the series, two Calgarian educational institutions stood in for the fictitious University of East Colorado: Mount Royal University and the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.
It probably makes the most sense to stay in Calgary for a tour of The Last of Us's most familiar shooting locations. The palatial Fairmont Palliser is a popular choice among travel aficionados, whereas the downtown Hyatt Regency is always a solid pick.
Capital city Edmonton was heavily featured alongside Calgary in episode two of The Last of Us, standing in for Boston in a smattering of exterior shots. Most notably, the Alberta Legislature Building stood in for the Massachussetts State House, with the latter's iconic gold dome presumably added in post.
