A day trip to Cicely, Alaska
OK, maybe it was really Roslyn, Washington.
Tawni and I drove East from her place to this small town that has had an interesting past. Founded as a center of the coal-mining industry in Washington, Roslyn next became a forestry-centric community and then most famously hosted the film crew for Northern Exposure. Today, it is hard to say what the population of 1000 souls can call its specialty. There is a fancy-shmancy new golf resort just West of the town, but I’m sure that the current economy is not passing on much of a benefit to Roslyn.
It is interesting to walk around the town of Roslyn with the layout of Cicely so permanently etched in my head. There is still a store front for KBHR that has a lot of set pieces from Chris-in-the-morning’s exterior shots , but it is not in the middle of the main street as I so clearly remember. One store still has “Dr. Joel Fleischman” painted on the outside and at least one store that could have been Ruth’s market.
We decided to have lunch at the Brick. Unfortunately Holling and Shelley were out of town, but we still received great service. Their cross-cut fries and onion rings were quite tasty. I even had one of the local brews: Roslyn Brewing Dark Lager. It had a nice hop/malt balance. (Don’t let the look on my face fool you, it was an enjoyable beer.) As we sat and ate our lunch, watching some locals come in and a few other tourists, I kept expecting to see familiar scenes and faces. But, I had to keep reminding myself that all the interior shots were on a set, not in the real Brick.
Tawni and I were surprised that we didn’t see more Northern Exposure paraphernalia around town or in the shops when we realized that it has been almost 20 years since the show premiered and that Roslyn/Cicely doesn’t feature prominently in America’s collective conscience any longer.
Tomorrow, we’re going to track down Agent Cooper and maybe have some cherry pie and a damn fine cup of coffee. Just as long as there isn’t a fish in the percolator.
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