Spotlight 9 / 1991, Das aktuelle Magazin in Englisch, September, p.29-30

The real Twin Peaks

Vorsicht! Wenn Sie nicht den Artikel "Peaks freaks" zuerst lesen, sagt Ihnen dieser Bericht möglicherweise nichts. Sie werden aber in den nächsten Wochen darauf zurückkommen.

"Can I get you a cup of coffee?" the waitress asks. I nod and grin, trying very hard not to laugh. Anywhere else in the USA this standard restaurant greeting would go unnoticed, but this is the Double-R-Diner. Chrome stools stand, bolted in place, around the curved countertop in the centre of the room. Pink and white neon tubes light geometric shapes on the ceiling. Was this life imitating art, or had I stepped inside my TV set and into Twin Peaks?

I took a good look at my waitress when she returned with the coffee pot. No, she was neither Norma nor Shelly. And FBI Agent Cooper was nowhere to be seen. But his well-known quotation praising the diner´s desserts ("This is where pies go when they die") is immortalized on a T-shirt hanging in the window of the restaurant, which is really the Mar-T café.

... the real bridge where the scene was shot // waiting for coffee in the Mar-T café, the model for the Double-R-Diner in "Twin Peaks"

Murder and intrigue

Welcome to the world of Twin Peaks. Actually there is no such place, but this is as close as you´ll get. Snoqualmie and North Bend are the twin towns in Washington state that provide the quiet, country setting for the series. David Lynch, the show´s creator and director, said that he chose the area for his strange story of murder and intrigue, because it was a place without a past. This adds to the mystery, he believes.

Lynch is only half right. Snoqualmie is not entirely unknown. It is the home of one the state´s largest tourist attractions, Snoqualmie Falls. A hundred feet higher than Niagara, the Snoqualmie Falls have drawn crowds for generations.

Designated neutral territory by the Indians, this was once a peaceful meeting place for the Yakima, Nez Percé, Walla Walla and Spokane tribes. White settlers discovered the 268-foot high waterfall in the mid-1800s, and in 1899, the railway brought people from Seattle, just 30 miles to the east, to the Snoqualmie Valley. Now, Salish Lodge (and a hydro-electric power plant) sits at the top of the falls - just as in the opening credits of the series.

Business at the Lodge, known as the Great Northern Hotel in Twin Peaks, has tripled since the show began. Visitors are often surprised to discover, however, that the hotel rooms and lobby are not like those shown on TV. The interior shots were filmed at an entirely different lodge in Paulsbo, Washington. Inside, the Salish Lodge is actually more elegant than its TV version.

Not Twin Peaks: Snoqualmie Falls

"Welcome to Twin Peaks"

Mount Si and Little Si are the twin peaks after which the series is named. They are visible from just about anywhere in North Bend or Snoqualmie, but the best place from which to view them is probably the lonely stretch of road where the TV producers placed the "Welcome to Twin Peaks" sign - just past the high school and railroad tracks.

Fans know that the only thing that impresses Agent Cooper more than a good cup of coffee and a piece of Double-R-Diner pie is the size of the local Douglas firs.

Visitors should make a special point of seeing the specimen sheltered under a roof in the park. This Douglas fir was 260 feet long and had a diameter of 11 1/2 feet when it was felled in 1967. It weighs about 29 tons and is over 4,400 years old.

Like Twin Peaks, Snoqualmie did have a lumber mill and, again as in the TV story, this burnt down several years ago. The mill office is seen regularly by viewers as Sheriff Harry Truman´s office.

When Twin Peaks came to Snoqualmie it was just another logging town scarred physically by the industry´s growth, and then economically by the industry´s slow death. Most people probably would have driven through, stopping only for a look at the falls. Snoqualmie seemed immune to the beauty of its own setting - until it was captured through the eyes and lens of director David Lynch. Now the town has taken a second look at itself, and so has the entire nation.

People come for the fantasy and discover the falls and the trees. They come for the feeling of small-town America. They come for a piece of pie and a cup of "jo" - and for the waitress who will stop and talk when she´s serving them.

"They filmed over 13 hours of the series here last season," my waitress informed me proudly, as she poured a cup of the diner´s famous coffee. "I wasn´t in it, but our head waitress was. It´s sure been good for business."

Rebecca Nielsen

[word translations German/English omitted]