Here There Be Lions

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Here they be.

"The Lions" is the name of a distinctive two-peaked mountain feature near Vancouver. Many shows filmed in the Vancouver area eventually use The Lions as a landmark for some stage of treasure map or scavenger hunt. It usually represents a far off uninhabited country or even another planet, despite being visible from anywhere in one of Canada's largest cities.

Examples of Here There Be Lions include:

Literature

  • In the Matt Cruse trilogy (Airborn and following), Vancouver is renamed "Lionsgate City" after the Lions.

Live-Action TV

  • In the MacGyver episode The Treasure of Manco, MacGyver follows a treasure map through the deep jungles of Peru, using The Lions as a crucial landmark.
  • On the 2000s remake of Battlestar Galactica, The Lions are "transported" to the planet Kobol - the original home of all mankind. The crew uses them to find the Lost Tomb of Athena which would give them a map to Earth... if only they'd looked down the other side of the hill, they would've found Vancouver.
  • The first (and perhaps only) Canadian challenger to appear on the original Japanese version of Iron Chef was based out of Vancouver. Not only did they show The Lions in his introductory video, but he actually worked the silhouettes of the two peaks into one of his dishes.

Real Life

  • Vancouver's Canadian football team is the BC Lions (though the team mascot is an actual lion, not a mountain peak).