Hallmark’s new hit drama Ride sure is a love letter to the American west. The series stars Nancy Travis as the matriarch of the McMurray family, which is comprised of generation after generation of successful ranchers and rodeo superstars. With its focus firmly on the ranch and rodeo scenes and its camera fixated on the Rocky Mountains, it feels like Hallmark’s giving you a roundtrip ticket to Colorado every Sunday night at 9 p.m. ET.
But here’s the real question: is Ride really filmed in Colorado? We know that while some Hallmark movies were made where they’re set, more often than not these productions are filmed in corners of Canada that can double for Los Angeles, New York, and every small town in between. So, what’s up with Ride? Is Ride filmed in Canada? Or is it actually a Colorado production through and through? Here’s what we know about where Ride on Hallmark was filmed.
Ride is set in Colorado, but — you guessed it — it is filmed in Canada. Specifically, Ride is filmed in and around the city of Calgary, Alberta. The stunning vistas you see on Ride and all of those mountain ranges are, in fact, the Rocky Mountains — the same mountains that run all the way down through Colorado. Calgary is situated in the foothills of those mountains, which makes it a prime spot for filming a show like Ride. In fact, the show put up its sets on a soundstage at Calgary’s Rocky Mountain Film Studio.
For the McMurray ranch, the production team used a real ranch in Turner Valley 40 miles south of Calgary named The Bar-N Ranch & Cattle Company. In an interview with Wide Open Country, series star Tiera Skovbye said, “It’s a real working ranch about an hour south of Calgary outside of Turner Valley. There are beautiful rolling hills, and the ranch has thousands of acres. They do hay, they have cattle, all sorts of things. They have horses and breed horses. It’s amazing. There’s a river running through it.”
For the rodeo scenes, Ride seems to have filmed them in two places. It was reported that Ride was filmed in the town of High River, most likely at the High River Ag Grounds which is home to the Guy Weadick Rodeo. But back up in Calgary, it was also reported that the show was filmed at the Calgary Stampede. Considering how much rodeo action there is in Ride, we wouldn’t be surprised if the show visited every rodeo in the province.
New episodes of Ride premiere on Hallmark on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET with a next-day premiere on Peacock.