Aahana Swrup
The Hallmark prairie romance show ‘When Calls the Heart’ transports the audience to an idyllic 1900s town, which—much like its residents—undergoes drastic development and progress over the course of multiple years. Throughout this journey, the town known as Coal Valley, when Elizabeth Thatcher, the new teacher, first arrives, becomes Hope Valley, home to numerous compelling, lovable characters. Naturally, as the community carves out an identity for itself, several landmark locations establish themselves, with the Jack Thornton School perhaps the most important of them all. Therefore, given the instrumental part the school plays in the lives of the townsfolk, its connections to reality remain intriguing. SPOILERS AHEAD!
The Jack Thornton School is a Crucial Part of the Fictional Town
Much like the various other aspects of the central town, Hope Valley, The Jack Thornton School is also a work of fiction, original to the confines of the fictional show. ‘When Calls the Heart’ was originally meant to be a television movie based on Janette Oke’s eponymous 1983 book from the ‘Canadian West Series.’ However, in the process of adapting the book into a movie and turning it into a show, creators Brian Bird and Michael Landon Jr. find themselves taking notable departures from the source material. Consequently, the fictionalization of most elements in Elizabeth’s on-screen story can be credited to the showrunners and their team of screenwriters.
The Jack Thornton School is one such element. The school makes its debut in season 2 after Jack Thornton, resident Mountie and Elizabeth’s love interest, takes on the task of rebuilding the town’s Church/School building. Consequently, with the help of Leland “Lee: Coulter, he creates the ideal place for Elizabeth and her students. Eventually, the school goes on to become the backdrop in numerous important moments, as it momentarily turns into an emergency infirmary or a wedding venue. By season 5—after Jack Thornton’s unfortunate death—the town names the school in his honor, christening it The Jack Thornton School.
Even though the establishment is not a real place, it remains a realistic representation of what education looked like in the 1900s. For instance, the all-ages nature of the school, where different grade levels learn together under one teacher, remains mostly accurate. Still, like the rest of the town, parts of education in Elizabeth’s classrooms retain a sense of fictional idealism that occasionally contradicts history. Even so, its gravity in the small community further establishes the significance of such spaces in real-life towns. Nevertheless, while the school remains a fitting romanticized addition to the idyllic Hope Valley, it also shares the latter’s fictionality. Still, the physical on-screen building that fans are familiar with is actually a real-life location.
Off-screen, the exterior of the Jack Thorton School stands as a real, physical building erected specifically for the show with its period setting in mind. Likewise, the interior of the schoolhouse is also a real set with detailed additions to infuse the place with all the makings of a classroom. From educational wall decor to chalkboards with math equations and a functioning piano and porch, Elizabeth’s classroom is an actual set in on the MacInnes Farms in Canada’s Langley, British Columbia, where ‘When Calls the Heart’ is originally filmed. Thus, the realistic set design of the establishment informs the fictional school’s sense of on-screen realism.
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