"Welcome to Roslyn AKA Cicely, Alaska" a Roslyn Travel Page by Goner

Do yourself a favor, if you're ever in Central Washington visit the little town of Roslyn, it's not only the filming site for the well-known TV show NORTHERN EXPOSURE (alias Cicely, AK) but it has a very interesting history about the coal mining and the 24 different nationalities of the people who settled here.

It's been said that Roslyn became a ghost town soon after the mines closed. Certainly, it was a town changed. The population dropped from a high of 4,000 in the early 20th century to 938 in 1999.

In 1990, a television production company came to town and became the location site for the award winning television series Northern Exposure. Film crews filled the streets, along with the tourists who came to see it all happening. For five years, Roslyn was known by millions of TV viewers as Cicely, Alaska. New businesses sprouted, tourists poured in, and the town was booming all over again.

Since 1995, when the series ended, Roslyn has quieted down some. There are still Northern Exposure gift shops, but the stream of tourists buying moose key chains and mugs has become more of a trickle. Locally driven small businesses are taking hold. Cottage industries are being cultivated. Art still flourishes. People flock here not so much to see Cicely, but to go mountain biking, fishing, backpacking and snowmobiling in the thousands of acres of wilderness and national forest surrounding the town. Roslyn is experiencing a "new age."