In May 2022 my new book Fire Walk With Me: Your Laura Disappeared will be released. Over the next few months, I will be giving readers a sneak peek at this 30th anniversary look at David Lynch’s film in the Twin Peaks franchise.
Over the July 4th weekend, I took a trip back to Twin Peaks. No, I didn’t pop in the DVDs or stream it for the last time on Netflix. I boarded a plane and flew to Snoqualmie, Washington, the filming site of FWWM. In September 1991, director David Lynch and his cast and crew filmed around the sleepy Washington area. One of the places they filmed was at Olallie state park which became the setting for much of Deer Meadow, the first half hour of the film. I used my vaccination and Washington state’s 70% vaccine rate to justify my first trip back to this location in a few years. My first trip to the area was captured in my 2015 documentary A Voyage to Twin Peaks. [This 35 minute look at the final year of the Twin Peaks fan festival is available for rent on Amazon.] It is such a rare opportunity for a television fan to get to visit the filming locations and feel like you are actually in a fictional town that you watched on your home screen. Most TV shows film in a sound stage so there isn’t much opportunity to visit the actual locations.
At Olallie state park, you can see the exterior of the Deer Meadow Sheriff station, and if you are invited in, the interior as well. In 2015, I got to go inside and see Sheriff Cable’s office and the waiting room where the secretary didn’t have coffee, but had a phone with a little ring. The house used to be the Ranger’s station, and even had a WiFi router called Deer Meadow. They were happy to allow entry to fans of FWWM. Things had changed since my last visit. The small house now seemed to be a residence and had signs posted in the front, back, and side explaining this was private property. So approaching the building where Chet and Sam conducted the Teresa Banks autopsy was not a good idea, unless you wanted to meet the actual local authorities.
Instead, I walked down to the river and saw the location where Banks’s body floated down the river. I walked through the woods and saw Jack Rabbit’s palace from Twin Peaks: The Return, the tree that Alicia Witt’s character huddled behind, and the spot where Laura and Bobby buried Deputy Cliff’s body. (Or the half-hearted attempt to bury it. I mean seriously how did this body never show up? Must have been the three sticks Bobby put on his body.) In my upcoming book, I interview Ron Garcia who was the director of photography for the film. He tells a great story about filming in these woods and how he tussled with Lynch on this scene. Garcia says, “I think I was just ornery that night.”
This was just one of the places I visited to get new photos for the book. I am planning on offering a full color version of the book which readers will only be able to get when they are ordered through the Blue Rose or FMP websites. The rest of the outlets will have a black and white, pod version so this might be a reason to not order from the American church of Amazon. If you already placed the order from me, you will get the color version, providing we can make it happen. It will depend on preorders and interest in the book. I am working on a few other surprises, but I can’t tell you about that.
Part 2 covers my overnight stay at the Salish. Thanks for supporting all my projects and remember to order the Art issue of the Blue Rose which Blake Morrow, The Women of David Lynch cover, is curating. Maybe he will print one of my pictures from the bottom of the falls? Doubtful, I don’t have that kind of pull.
Thanks, Scott
Preorder The Art Issue of The Blue Rose which focuses on the Art of Twin Peaks. New interviews and art by Michael Horse (Hawk) and Charlotte Stewart (Mary X, Betty Briggs) and over 50 other artists.
Preorder Fire Walk With Me: Your Laura Disappeared
Order Scott Ryan’s latest book Moonlighting: An Oral History or But, Couldn’t I Do That? which gives you a play by play on how to self publish.