On Wanting To Be Joel Fleischman

We’ve been catching old episodes of Northern Exposure on Universal HD. Both Becky and I were diehard fans of the show when it was orginally on. Seeing it again, 15 years later, made me realize how enduring it is.

We couldn’t get enough, so we also started renting the DVDs. A few years back, I was looking for information on when the DVDs were going to get released. Apparently, all those songs that Chris would play on KBHR were going to make the DVDs prohibitively expensive to sell. The DVDs finally came out, unfortunately filled with indistinct, royalty-free music.

I started to look around to see if there were others who still enjoy the show as much as we do. There are a ton of fan sites out there. Some have taken their fascination with the show to an almost obsessive level.

There is a yearly festival, called Moosefest, that takes place in Roslyn, Washington, where Northern Exposure was shot. I visited Roslyn about 10 years ago, and have to say that it feels remarkably close to what you would expect out of the fictional Cicely, Alaska. You just need to look past the fact that every other storefront has turned into a Northern Exposure t-shirt store.

Thinking back to when I originally watched the show, I remember how much I wanted to move to Alaska. Looking through Alaska message boards, there seem to be plenty of people who get drawn in by the myth that Hollywood creates for Alaska. The most recent vehicle to create this fascination has been Into the Wild, despite the doomed conclusion. Alaskans on these message boards will stop short of calling you an idiot, if you think Alaska is like what you see on television.

I guess you don’t feel the cold weather as a child. I can’t entertain the thought of living in Cicely anymore. I’m probably more suited for Roslyn, a little further south.

Photo by tiny_tear.