‘When Calls the Heart’ Turns 10: See Fun Facts About Hallmark Show

For Hearties Only

For exclusive news and updates, subscribe to our When Calls the Heart Newsletter:

The “Hearties” are still waiting to hear when they can expect When Calls the Heart Season 11 to hit Hallmark Channel, but in the meantime, we have a milestone to celebrate!

January 11 marks When Calls the Heart’s 10th anniversary, and it’s been a decade full of drama — both in the fictional Coal Valley and, occasionally, in real life.

In honor of the show’s 10th birthday, here are some fun facts about the Hallmark hit that you might not know…

It was a Hallmark movie before it was a Hallmark series.

Before producer Michael Landon Jr. developed the When Calls the Heart TV show, he turned the same Janette Oke story into a Hallmark movie. Also titled When Calls the Heart, that 2013 movie featured Maggie Grace, Jean Smart, and Stephen Amell. And Lori Loughlin plays Abigail in both versions.

The original plan was to film When Calls the Heart in Colorado.

In June 2013, producers announced plans to film the TV series version of When Calls the Heart in Telluride, Colorado, in a move that then-Governor John Hickenlooper said would create 200 jobs and an economic impact of $15 million, as the Denver Business Journal reported at the time.

Just weeks later, however, the production shifted to Vancouver, British Columbia, because it had outgrown Colorado’s $2.7-million incentive program, as the Journal noted.

The crew built the Coal Valley set in less than a month.

Eike Schroter/Crown Media

Production designer Brendan Harron told reporters that the When Calls the Heart crew built Coal Valley’s buildings — a schoolhouse, a Mountie outpost, a café, et cetera — in three and a half weeks, according to The Canadian Press. And the buildings are all fully furnished — and often tarnished to look aged.

Some props came from another cable TV drama.

Harron also said that some of the When Calls the Heart props — including a stagecoach — were recycled from Hell on Wheels, an AMC drama about the construction of the United States’ first transcontinental railroad.

Fans can visit the set and even meet the cast members.

The Hearties Family Reunion, which took place for the seventh time in September 2023, lets fans explore the Hope Valley set, talk with cast members, and meet fellow “Hearties” from all over the world.

The costumes aren’t meant to be historically accurate.

Hallmark Channel asked costume designer Barbara Gregusova to keep the costumes aesthetically similar to the wardrobe on the rest of its shows, and not necessarily accurate to When Calls the Heart’s time period.

And that works out well, money-wise. “We don’t really have a budget for me building costumes from 1910,” Gregusova told TV Insider in 2016. “So that’s why it’s easier to incorporate that modern feel, because I can go to a store and buy something.”

Daniel Lissing and Erin Krakow wrote their character’s wedding vows.

Ahead of Jack Thornton and Elizabeth Thatcher’s onscreen wedding, Lissing and Krakow talked about writing their characters’ wedding vows themselves, as Lissing told Entertainment Tonight in 2018.

“So we took that to the producers, and they were like, ‘Well, yeah, you guys know the characters better than anyone else does,’” the actor added. “I wrote Jack’s vows and she wrote Elizabeth’s, and there’s that connection there.”

Jack Wagner and Kristina Wagner were previously married — on screen and off.

Before playing ex-spouses Bill and Nora Avery on When Calls the Heart, the Wagners played General Hospital supercouple Frisco Jones and Felicia Cummings on General Hospital, and they were married in real life between 1993 and 2006.

“It was very frightening to work together again,” Jack said of working with Kristina on When Calls the Heart in a 2015 Associated Press interview. “We know each other from that one format, which is General Hospital, and we knew exactly what to do there. These are new characters. But we really worked through it and we have a great chemistry.”

When Calls the Heart, Season 11, TBA, Hallmark Channel