The movie industry was easy to see this week in Maple Ridge, in a big way. Crews are spending most the week in the downtown, wrapping cotton batten around trees, moving in Christmas decorations and placing Christmas trees in just the right spot along 224th Street.

“We’ve turned this into a town called Bramble,” explained excutive-producer Kim Arnott, from Vancouver with Two 4 the Money Media.

“It’s about a young single mom who travels to a town that’s supposed to be magical.”

The title of the movie, which will be on the Hallmark Movie Channel in the U.S., hasn’t been released yet. It will show this Christmas season.

To create the effect of real ice, the producers used real ice – fish ice hauled in from the docks in Richmond. Crews were busy hauling it around in wheelbarrows and then piling it against street lamps and corners, just like it was the last cold, snowy winter. Movie extras were also bundled up in winter clothing and mixing with pedestrians strolling down Maple Ridge’s main street in summer clothes.