I Ate at The Brick!!!

The last 500..or 800 miles ( I loose track) have been fun but uneventful. Low mountains and river valleys. Again I usually take smaller back roads which are slower but go through the various communities and are more interesting.

I stayed at some great campgrounds. N'Kwala State (BC) Recreational Area had a beautiful display of the night sky with it's millions of stars. As a public campground it had no electricity and therefore no lights to dim the stars. I sat for hours watching the sky. It was great.

Another campground, Atla Lake State Park, Wa. had a great swimming beach and a cool deep lake. I got 2 swims in. Since it has been in the mid-90s around here the last few days the swims felt really good.

I was surprised to find that southern British Columbia and most of central Washington are high desert country. Heat, rocks, sand, sporadic pine trees and sage everywhere for 100s of miles. It sure does smell good though.

There are river valleys, however. You will be driving for an hour in sand and rocks and then all of a sudden there is a verdant green valley in front of you. Irrigation. Where they can irrigate there are beautiful fields of pretty much all fruit, especially grapes. Northern central Wa is very much wine country.

I was driving up a mountain pass but there was mountain on both sides of me. I go around a bend and...whoa there is a 500 foot drop off the side of the road with no guardrails. Great view of the valley though.

 

At a rest stop/historical stop. Built in 1867. Moved to it's present location in 1892.

(front)

(back)

 

OK, enough of the travelogue. You have probably seen enough river valleys, glaciers and log cabins to last you until next summer. Now let's get to the important part.

 

In everyone's life there are certain key events, mileposts, breaks (good or bad) that define one's personality and character.  A job, marriage and children are certainly key events but there are others.

 

As a young person, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show and Mad Magazine were defining materials for me. As a high school, college, law school student it was Mad Magazine, Star Trek, rock n roll music and Bob Dylan, The Byrds and Neil Young.  As a young father, it was the Homer Simpson Show (sorry daughters).

 

As, can we say, a more mature adult, "Northern Exposure" came on the TV and blew me away. For some reason this show really resonated with me. The beautiful Alaskan scenery, Joel's attempts to fit in, the issues that were brought up: Chris' black half brother, the fact that Roslyn and Cecily may have been lesbian lovers, native/herbal medicines vs Joel's reliance on empirical data, the 2 gay guys that bought the bed and breakfast house from Maurice, Maurice dealing with age, attempts by modern man to exist in the wilderness, protecting the wilderness vs the benefits of development. Remember this was back in 1990-1995. The first season only had 8 episodes. The show lasted 6 seasons.

 

The TV show was set in Cecily, Alaska but was filmed in Roslyn, Wa. I arranged my Alaskan road trip route so that I would come through central Washington and be able to visit that fictional city of Cecily, Ak. to fully complete my Alaskan journey.

 

For some reason, I have felt that Cecily/Roslyn were my psychic centerpoint and that it was necessary for me to make a pilgrimage here. Just as Richard Dryfus was called to The Devil's Tower in "Close Encounters", so I have I been compelled to make this visit to Cecily.

 

I have found the that there are actually 3 Roslyns.

 

1. The historical Roslyn. It became a town in the 1880s because it lies near (and on) a huge deposit of coal. Roslyn was a major coal production area until the 1960s. There is a lot of the old town around and a lot of history here. Four-fifths of the coal is still in the ground. It lies right under the city and therefore became too difficult/expensive to mine. A memorial to miners killed in the mines was erected right in front of Chris' KBHR radio studio in 1995 after Northern Exposure stopped filming.

 

                                                   

                                 An example of the "trains" used to haul the coal out of the ground.

 

                         

The cemetery area. It is locally considered that there are 25 separate cemeteries but all located in the same area. The miners and people in the past were buried according to their ethnicity or the lodge that they belonged to. The mines brought in people from all over the world. There are 24 different ethnicities represented in the 25 "cemeteries". 

 

The Miners Memorial is now in front of the KBHR studio which is behind the trees on the right.

 



                                                          

 

2. The present day Roslyn. This area (Cle Elum, South Cle Elum and Rosyln) are kind of the hub to recreation in the lakes and mountains around here. Rosyln is still a very active city. The four restaurants in the downtown area were all busy last (Friday) night.

 

 

3. The fictitious Rosyln known as Cecily, Alaska.

 

Cecily is the town I came to visit and it was exciting to see that the main buildings used in the TV show are still present. The downtown area isn't a whole lot different than it was in the show. I was concerned that I would find that everything had been torn down.

 

Friday I had wondered around for an hour taking pictures when a production group began to shoot a commercial for REI. That was fun to watch. I have been a member of REI since 1970 so it was fun that these things came together while I was there.

 

If you remember the show, you will remember:

 

Roslyn's Café.

This wall was used in the opening credits with the moose walking by. The show added a " 's " to Roselyn's name. It was removed again after the show ended.





 

The front of Roslyn's Café.

The Brick Tavern.

The Brick Saloon is an interesting story in it's own right. It began in the late 1880s and is the oldest, continually operating bar in the State of Washington. The actual bar was built in England in the early 1900s and sailed around Cape Horn to arrive in Portland and is over 100 years old. The table that I sat at to eat was wide wooden logs and purchased from Sears and Roebuck over 100 years ago. There were several such tables and chairs in the bar.

The Brick was the central location for the show. The outside is the same as shown in the show. They did not use the inside of the bar. The inside bar scenes in the show were shot in a production studio.

Joel's Office.

                                   
I was surprised to find that there is no reference to the TV show in tourist literature handed out for Roslyn and no reference as you drive into town. But while I was there (and I'm going back again) there were always a dozen or two people walking around taking pictures. I talked to several that came to Roslyn just for the same reason I did.

Except Joel's office. This is now a gift shop. Marne, will tell you that I avoid going into gift shops at all cost, but I had to here. I spoke to the owner. He is a fourth generation Roslyn-ite. He appeared in 54 scenes in the series. He is friends with all of the actors and keeps in contact with them.

He told me that the other buildings are owned by people that came after the TV series and that they do not have any ties to the show.

The first show was over 20 years ago so there is not a big demand for Northern Exposure stuff but the owner of the gift shop is the sole licensed seller because he is the last one still doing it. He was pretty interesting to talk to.

KBHR Radio/Minnifield Communications.


The radio studio was left just as Chris used it on the show. His chair, phone, microphone, albums and 8 track tapes are just as he left them.

Ruth Ann's Grocery Store.

Ruth Ann died in 2002.

 

Main Street

 Village Pizza is the far right building. It was "Village Pizza" in the TV show and still is. It was very busy last night.

 

I could add many more pictures but it is just too slow downloading them outside the DQ store.

 

Well, flounders, that's it for me. This is the last blog entry. My Alaskan trip (real and fictional) is now complete. Now I just get on I 90 and point my car east. I will do some camping on the way home but you have probably driven this route yourself so you don't need me to tell you about it.

 

Thank you for the time you spent reading. It has been a great trip! I'm going back to The Brick for dinner tonight and maybe have a beer and go over the last two months and remember the all the good sites and scenes.

 

If you are so inclined, the closing song in the last episode of Northern Exposure was "Our Town" by Iris DeMent. If you find it, cue it up here. The main refrain is that all good things never last. It is time for me to head home no matter how much fun this trip has been. It is time to see Marne and Allie and Liz! Oh, and I suppose, it is time to get back to work also.



 

See you in Glencoe!

 

 

+