Talkeetna Alaska Inspired Northern Exposure
Television Town of Cicely Bares Little Resemblance to Talkeetna
Jun 6, 2009
Talkeetna, Alaska with a year-round population of 772, inspired the television show "Northern Exposure." Located about 150 miles south of Denali National Park, Talkeetna is within view of Mount McKinley, North America’s highest peak at 20,320 feet.
German Settlers in Alaska
Much of Talkeetna’s businesses operate in the original log structures built by German immigrants in the early 1900s. The oldest is the Talkeetna Roadhouse, built beginning in 1914 as home to a horse freighter for area miners. The menu offers a delicious R.L.T. sandwich for $7.50. Not to be confused with the more common B.L.T., the R stands for reindeer meat.
Next to the city welcome sign, mounted to a wheelbarrow, is the Three German Bachelor’s Cabin, circa 1934. The 12” X 24’ structure that once kept three German bachelors warm for the long Alaska winters is now where Laura McDonald sells jams made from the fresh berries she picks in the woods around her home.
Laura's friend Michele Stevens was born in the Three Bachelor's Cabin, which was a private residence until 1985. They admit that locals are wary of newcomers at first, but time is a true test of an individual's place in Talkeetna.
George Parks Highway From Anchorage to Denali
More folks started finding Talkeetna in 1985 when the 14-mile road connecting Talkeetna to the George Parks Highway from Anchorage to Denali was paved. Later, in 2000, when the massive Talkeetna Lodge was built, real estate land values doubled, as did visitors to the area.
“That’s when some folks say Talkeetna went to hell in a hand basket,” said the bartender at The West Rib, a ramshackle bar and grill named for the first ascent of McKinley’s treacherous ridge called the West Rib.
Stubbs, the Mayor Cat
Stubbs is a feral cat that lives in and around Talkeetna, making himself warm in the winter near Nagley's Store. The people of Talkeetna so love Stubbs and so avoid civic responsibility that Stubbs was officially elected mayor in a write-in campaign.
Moose Dropping Festival
Summer is when the visitors descend upon Talkeetna, particularly for the Moose Dropping Festival each July. This fundraiser for the Historical Society doesn’t actually drop a moose from the sky, but rather drops their numbered droppings from helium balloons. The dropping that comes closest to hitting the bulls-eye win. Each year about 12,000 folks put down good, hard-earned money for a pile of moose poop attached to a balloon.
That's Talkeetna: a superstar in the world of quirky places and people.
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