Culling our video collection prior to the latest renovation project, I came across some old dubs of Northern Exposure which we’d made in the mid 90s. (Both TVs at Mill Brook House have video playback, so most of our videotapes have migrated here.) While I’d seen the shows broadcast, I’d never actually watched these tapes. Throwing one into a video player, I quickly entered a time warp. Intelligent people being kind to one another, enjoying quiet moments of self-realization and personal growth—when was the last time I had seen that acted out on television?
What gave these old dubs even more resonance, however, was how much more I could identify with the residents of Cicely now that I know Charlemont; the need to accept people, whatever their politics, religion, sexual preference or profession because they’re all you’ve got, was suddenly very real. I used to wonder about the eight principals on Northern Exposure—why only them? Didn’t other people live in Cicely? But, in fact, my circle in Charlemont is pretty much confined to the same ten or twelve people I encounter regularly as neighbors, tradesmen, shopkeepers, farmers—and not to forget the post mistress. For me, Cicely, Alaska, has become a little less of a fantasy town than it used to be.
Below are some of my four-footed and post-and-lintel neighbors. Just out of sight are some really great people.
The Hallenbeck House in Winter
Bissell Bridge and Waterfall
Fawn in our Front Meadow
Former One-Room Schoolhouse
Schoolhouse seen from Goat Rising Farm
Goat Rising Goat
Goat Rising Cow
Next Door Neighbors