It may be hard to imagine — even during this warmer-than-normal Prairie winter — that arguably the most hyped television series in a beach setting since Baywatch was shot on the west side of Lake Manitoba.

Yes, it may look like the characters on Falcon Beach are prancing up and down the shores of California, Hawaii or Florida, but in reality the sand between their toes belongs to Winnipeg Beach and a couple of neighbouring lakefront communities.

According to long-time local residents, the show was definitely “the buzz” last summer. (No mosquito jokes, please.) The community centre and several cottages were rented out as the main locales, and some lucky bystanders were able to earn $10 an hour as extras, either in beach scenes or walking down the boardwalk. There will even be a lasting legacy as the approximately $5,000 in rental income will go toward fixing up the tennis courts.

And even though the show had a fairly strict shooting schedule, it did so without interfering in the daily lives, such as swimming lessons and other programming, of the local cottagers.

The show, which was launched earlier this month on Global TV, has also been picked up by ABC’s Family Channel, making it the first prime-time series shown on a major network to be shot in Manitoba. Falcon Beach also joins CTV’s Due South — which ran on CBS for two years — as one of a select few Canadian shows to be produced for first-run broadcast in Canada and the U.S.

For those who have somehow managed to avoid the hype of the babes and studs on this show on television, billboards and in newspapers, Falcon Beach is an hour-long drama in the mould of Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place and Dawson’s Creek. It tells the story of the tourists and locals whose lives intertwine during the summer season.

The Manitoba connections run deeper than merely the setting. The 13-episode run is being co-produced by Winnipeg’s Original Pictures Inc. and Insight Productions in Toronto Co. Ltd.; and the theme song, Beautiful Blue, which is played over the opening credits, is performed by Winnipeg songster Holly McNarland.

The cast also features Allison Hossack, who grew up in the southwestern Manitoba town of Killarney and plays wealthy cottager Ginny Bradshaw.

The thinking among the producers is that Canadians would want to watch a summer show in the dead of winter. In case that didn’t do it, they also threw in a few strategic six-packs, string bikinis, crazy parties and drugs.

Falcon Beach is the latest in a growing line of made-in-Manitoba productions, resulting from the province’s film and video production tax credit. Last October, The Assassination of Jesse James, a blockbuster starring Brad Pitt as the legendary outlaw, saw Winnipeg’s Exchange District transformed into Kansas circa 1880, complete with wooden sidewalks.

The $35-million movie was shot in Winnipeg for only a week or so, but the economic spinoffs were felt long after the actors packed up their wagons and left town. An estimated $2.5 million was spent during the shoot, including the equivalent of 2,000 nights in local hotels for out-of-town members of the cast and crew.

The biggest movie shot in Winnipeg was 2003’s Shall We Dance? , starring Jennifer Lopez and Richard Gere, which helped stimulate an industry now worth about $100 million annually to the province. IE