His Dark Materials location: Where is Bolvangar? Is Bolvangar a real place?

BBC and HBO series His Dark Materials has crossed the halfway mark as viewers are plunged further into Philip Pullman’s rich and textured fantasy world. The show will see lead character Lyra

Belacqua (played by Dafne Keen) really challenged as she tries to find the stolen children and is herself hunted by her mother Mrs Coulter (Ruth Wilson). This week’s episode will see Lyra

thrown into harm’s way as she makes a discovery she could never have imagined.

In His Dark Materials, Bolvangar is located in the icy North and far away from civilisation.

The North itself is an icy wilderness ruled by ancient witches and the reach of the Magisterium is less.

Also, in this region lives the ancient race of armoured bears, who keep to themselves.

The North is a remote expanse of snow but has many different locations within it, including Bolvangar.

READ MORE: His Dark Materials cast: Who voices the bear? Meet the star 

In Pullman’s novels, Bolvangar is described as a terrible place full of evil.

Bolvangar is where the fictitious prison The Station is and sinister things happen there.

The area will have a big role to play in the show going forward as Lyra uncovers more things about the Magisterium.

In the books, one character called Kaisa says of Bolvangar: "They have put up buildings of metal and concrete, and some underground chambers. They burn coal-spirit, which they bring in at

great expense.

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"We don't know what they do, but there is an air of hatred and fear over the place and for miles around. Witches can see these things where other humans can't.

"Animals keep away too. No birds fly there; lemmings and foxes have fled.

"Hence the name Bolvangar: the fields of evil. They don't call it that.

"They call it The Station. But to everyone else it is Bolvangar."

The location of Bolvangar is a fictional place even though it sounds vaguely Nordic.

His Dark Materials was filmed in Wales mainly in Cardiff at Wolf Studios but there were also a number of other locations used by the production.

The Brecon Beacons stood in for some of the sweeping landscapes seen on the show as Lyra and the Gyptians travel North.

Some of the scenes from the village Lyra stopped off in last week and encountered Iorek Byrnison (Joe Tandberg) were shot at the old ironworks in Blaenavon in South Wales.

Speaking about shooting in Wales, executive producer Jane Tranter said the British nation had become a “global destination” for filmmaking.

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She told media including Express.co.uk: “I think the main thing I had to do was actually to find a studio in Wales to make it.

“I was absolutely convinced the key to the adaptation was actually about text and performance.

“Therefore, if we put everyone in a creative bubble in a studio in Wales, away from everyone and everything else, then we would find the key to everything.”

Tranter added: “There are all sorts of great companies coming into Wales from the UK and the US and I think were able to long ago show the world that the crews in Wales and the locations and

places in Wales were world class.”

His Dark Materials airs on BBC One on Sundays at 8pm and on HBO on Mondays

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