From The Province, Vancouver

Unhappy Homecoming (My whole childhood gone)

He's one of the hottest young stars in Hollywood, but yesterday Joshua Jackson was just another Vancouver car-theft statistic.

"I walked up to the counter at the police station, and the officer took one look at me and said, 'Let me guess, your car got broken into,' " the star of TV's Dawson's Creek said ruefully, eyeing the empty space at the back of his dusty late-model Chevy Tahoe.

The thieves made off with his camera gear, his camping stuff and his clothing.

But worst of all, they swiped all of Jackson's childhood photos, from baby pictures to when he was nine years old. And they also got his leather-bound journal, in which he'd been jotting his personal thoughts for the past two years.

"I was bringing them back to Vancouver for safe-keeping," he said of the family pictures. "My mom is going to have an aneurism when she finds out.

"They'd been in L.A. with me, where I needed them for work, for set decoration. I'm more than willing to pay a reward to get them back."

Ditto the journal, which was given to him by actress Leslie Bibb, his co-star in last spring's movie thriller The Skulls.

The Vancouver-born Jackson had been on the road for four weeks, on a solo driving and camping holiday through the American south and the Rocky Mountains.

He got to Vancouver on Tuesday to visit friends and family, and to celebrate his 22nd birthday this Sunday.

That's when the trip turned sour.

Jackson went over his movements since arriving in Vancouver, trying to figure out when the theft happened. Tuesday night he met friend Michelle Williams at the Sutton Place Hotel.

Williams, his Dawson's Creek castmate, is in Vancouver filming a movie with Christina Ricci. Yesterday morning he picked up boyhood friend Kion Davies near 14th and Manitoba, where he figures he left the SUV unlocked for a few minutes.

The two went for breakfast at a cafe near Kits Park. It was after breakfast, when Jackson went back to the SUV to get his toothbrush, that he realized he'd been robbed.

The pals searched the alleys and dumpsters nearby, hoping that the thief might have tossed what he didn't want -- but no luck.

"My whole childhood, all the pictures, gone," Jackson said, shaking his head.

The pictures were in the case for a boxed set of Ray Charles CDs.

"I've been on the road for weeks -- I'd literally leave my car on the side of the road for days while I hiked in the mountains -- and nothing bad happened. I come home and now this."

The only thing left in the SUV's cargo area was a set of golf clubs.

"Until this morning, I was having the best weeks of my life," Jackson said. "If someone is considering selling my stuff to a pawnshop, they can just sell it to me instead -- I'll pay replacement value."

Anyone who finds the pictures or journal -- or any of Jackson's other stuff -- can call the Province at 605-2030.