Is Every Year After’s Barry’s Bay Real?
Based on the Carley Fortune novel Every Summer After, Every Year After tells the story of Persephone ‘Percy’ Fraser (Sadie Soverall) and Sam Florek (Matt Cornett), who meet and fall in love over a series of summers from their pre-teen years right up until young adulthood.
At the heart of Every Year After is its location: Barry’s Bay. The idyllic, Canadian lakeside town where Percy spent her summers is the show’s main anchor. After all, it’s her return to Barry’s Bay a decade after her mysterious exit that sets the core story into motion.
With its cosy small-town vibes and sprawling lake, I feel like I speak for a lot of people when I say that I certainly wouldn’t mind a trip to Barry’s Bay myself. This, then, leads us to the million-dollar question: is Barry’s Bay actually real? As it turns out, the answer to that question is a little more complicated than one might expect…
Is Barry’s Bay Real?
Barry’s Bay is indeed a real place. Geographically, the village is located in Ontario, Canada, on the shores of Kamaniskeg Lake. So, yes: lakes are a big deal in the real Barry’s Bay too. However, the most interesting part about the IRL Barry’s Bay is that OG book author Fortune was essentially a Florek herself.
“I grew up on the lake in Barry’s Bay, and our house was kind of on a dirt road in the bush,” she told Decider. “There were only three permanent residences on the road. The other houses were cottages. It would be very quiet in the winter, and then every summer it was full of action and kids. I grew up working at my family’s restaurant. It was very much like Sam and Charlie’s story in the book.”
She went on to add that she wanted to write specifically about “growing up at the lake,” which eventually turned into Every Summer After.
Where Was Every Year After Filmed?
Here’s where things get a little confusing. While Barry’s Bay is real, the show itself isn’t actually filmed there. In an interview with Teen Vogue, showrunner Amy B. Harris revealed that they were unable to film in the real Barry’s Bay. So, instead, the show was primarily filmed on Bowen Island in British Columbia. Meanwhile, the actual swimming scenes (of which there were plenty) were filmed at Minaty Bay, which is also in British Columbia.
The interesting thing about Every Year After is that it explicitly places Barry’s Bay in British Columbia rather than Ontario. And for Harris, this is all about giving credit where credit is due.
“Because the locations we found were so stunning and really met what we hoped for in terms of the look of the dock and the water, and the mountains added this majestic element, we didn’t want to lie and say it was Ontario,” the showrunner said.
Fortune also told the outlet that, because Ontario and British Columbia weren’t visually similar, she was a huge advocate for the show being set in the latter. “As a Canadian, we get very used to seeing our cities represent other places, so let’s let British Columbia be British Columbia for once,” she said.
So, if you were planning your own dedicated Every Year After vacay, it would have to be a pretty expansive pit-stop tour that incorporates both the real Barry’s Bay in Ontario along with all the stunning British Columbia locations that show was filmed in. Either way, there will be plenty of lake action.
