Postcards from Cicely

a fan's page about Cicely, Alaska, and the people in it

August 6, 1995

Well, it's over. "Tranquility Base" aired on Wednesday, July 26, and that was the last one. I watched it when it was on and then again on the tape the next night, which is more than I can say for some of the people I work with, who didn't know it had been on at all. CBS moved the show around so much this year I don't blame them.

I'm not going to say what happens in it, for the people who taped it and haven't gotten to it yet. I'll only say that I sat in the dark for a while afterward with the TV off.

Five years. I'm going to keep this page going. There are bound to be reruns somewhere, and when they turn up I'll put the times here, and I still have my Roslyn pictures to put up. If you're a Cicely person too, sign the guestbook and tell me which episode you'll miss most.

Hello from Yakima

I'm Lucy Baughman. I'm 40, I clean teeth for a living at a dental office here in Yakima, Washington, and I have watched Northern Exposure since the summer of 1990, when CBS put on eight episodes to see if anybody would watch. I did. For most of its life it was on Monday nights at ten, which is late for somebody who starts with patients at 7:30, and I never once missed it.

It's about a young doctor from New York who has to pay back his medical school loans by practicing in a tiny town in Alaska, and that's about all it's about, and somehow it's about everything. There's no other show where the disc jockey reads philosophy on the air in the morning and the woman at the doctor's front desk says six words a week and you remember all six.

• The townsfolk (and who plays them)
• My favorite episodes
• The Emmy
• My day trip to Roslyn
• Guestbook

The townsfolk

Dr. Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow)

The doctor from New York who never stopped complaining about Alaska and never really wanted to leave it, whatever he said. Rob Morrow left the show early this year and I don't think it was ever the same, though I gave the new fellow a fair chance.

Maggie O'Connell (Janine Turner)

The bush pilot. Tough as a boot and very unlucky with men. Every woman I know wanted her hair.

Maurice Minnifield (Barry Corbin)

The former astronaut who owns the radio station and half the land in the borough and thinks he owns the rest. A blowhard with a soft middle.

Chris Stevens (John Corbett)

The morning man on KBHR. Ex-con, minister by mail order, reads poetry to the whole town over breakfast. My sister Gwen will tell you why she watched, and it wasn't the poetry.

Ed Chigliak (Darren E. Burrows)

The sweetest young man in Alaska. Wants to make movies. Knows every movie ever made.

Shelly Tambo (Cynthia Geary)

Works behind the bar at The Brick. Young, bubbly and smarter than people give her credit for.

Holling Vincoeur (John Cullum)

Owns The Brick. Old enough to be Shelly's grandfather, and the two of them are together anyway, and somehow you root for them.

Marilyn Whirlwind (Elaine Miles)

Joel's receptionist. Says almost nothing and is never wrong. My favorite person in Cicely.

Ruth-Anne Miller (Peg Phillips)

Runs the general store and has read every book in it. She's who I want to be when I'm her age.

Dr. Phil Capra (Paul Provenza)

The new doctor, from Los Angeles, with his wife Michelle. Nice enough, and he tried. It wasn't his fault he wasn't Joel.

My favorite episodes

Not in order, because I can't put them in order.

• The first one (July 1990). Joel finds out he's going to Cicely and not Anchorage. I laughed out loud at his face and I've laughed at it every time since.
• "Aurora Borealis" (August 1990). The northern lights come out and everybody gets a little strange. This is the one that told me the show was going to be different.
• "Seoul Mates" (December 1991). The Christmas one, and Maurice finds out something about his past. Barry Corbin at his very best.
• "Cicely" (May 1992). How the town got started, told as a story. If you only ever see one, see this one.
• "Kaddish for Uncle Manny" (May 1993). Joel needs ten men for a prayer and has to go looking for them. Made me cry at the end, which I didn't expect.
• "I Feel the Earth Move" (May 1994). A wedding in Cicely, and Holling wants to cater it. Funny and warm and I was proud of CBS for it.
• "The Quest" (February 1995). Joel's goodbye. I'll leave it at that.

The Emmy

In 1992 Northern Exposure won the Emmy for the best drama series on television, over everything else that was on. I stayed up to see it announced and called Gwen in Seattle afterward, and she'd been watching too. I said I'd known it all along. She said, "You did not." Well, I did.

My day trip to Roslyn

Here is something a lot of people don't know: Cicely, Alaska, is really Roslyn, Washington, an old coal-mining town in the mountains about an hour and a quarter from my front door. They film the outdoor scenes there, all those shots of the main street and the moose walking through town.

In June of 1994 Gwen came over from Seattle and the two of us drove up through Ellensburg on a Saturday, with sandwiches, like a couple of teenagers. Roslyn is a few blocks long and very quiet. They weren't filming that day, which Gwen says was a crime and I say was probably a blessing, because she'd have made a fool of herself over John Corbett.

The mural. The first thing you see is the painted wall on the side of the cafe, the one from the opening of the show, with the camel. It's bigger than it looks on TV. We stood across the street and just looked at it like it was the Mona Lisa. A man going by in a pickup slowed down and waved, I guess they're used to people like us.

The Brick. The Brick is real. It's a tavern on the main street and it's been there since the 1880s, one of the oldest in the state. Along the foot of the bar there is a long trough with water running through it, an old-time spittoon, still working. I had a cola and Gwen had a beer and we sat where Holling would have been. It was very dark and very nice and the lady at the bar said we were the fourth pair of sisters she'd seen that week.

The cemeteries. Up on the hill above town are a great many little cemeteries, more than twenty, side by side in the trees, one for each lodge and each old country the miners came from. We walked around up there for an hour. It was the most peaceful place I've ever been, and nothing to do with television at all.

We drove home the long way and got in after dark. Best Saturday I've had in years.

Photos: I took a whole roll and a half. They're coming, once my sister scans them. Gwen has a scanner at her office and keeps promising. (Gwen, if you're reading this: hint, hint.)

Roslyn picture page coming soon!