PENINSULA DAILY NEWS: THE CHANGING FACE OF FORKS BECAUSE OF ‘TWILIGHT’
The Peninsula Daily News has an article that looks at how Twilight has changed what the town of Forks is known for.
Forks was settled in the early 1900s because of its proximity to the Sol Duc, Quillayute, Bogachiel and Calawah Rivers.It was incorporated in 1945 and, at that time, farming was the primary means of earning a living.
For years it was famous as a “timber town.”
But it took a family of unrelated vampires to put Forks’ name firmly into the public eye and draw visitors by the thousands to this temperate rain forest.
Twilight — a dream by a young woman, Stephenie Meyer, which became a best-selling four-book series (and then a movie, with a sequel being filmed and plans for future films) — has changed the face of Forks and thrown open the doors to international visitors.
As anyone on the North Olympic Peninsula will attest, swarms of excited, eager
Twilight fans of all ages come to Forks to experience something magical.Forks is working hard to retain that mystical aura.
While Twilight opened the floodgates to a fan base ranging from preteen to “oughta know better,” both male and female, the challenge has become keeping the interest high on the West End — and, from all accounts, Forks is rising to the challenge.
Visitors can pick up a colorful map of the action sites in the book and go off on a self-guided tour, hoping to catch sight of the occasional vampire (on a cloudy day) or a werewolf (non-seasonal).
Their fantasy is fed by the Chamber of Commerce-run Visitor Information Center, where mail for the vampire Cullen family is being saved and where props for exciting photos are treasured and shared.
Directions to other activities and information on Olympic National Park, the former big draw, are offered as well.
Residents are showing a tolerant, slightly amused face to visitors and often recognize the plight of their photo-happy visitors and offer to snap a picture of a group of tourists.
Their indulgence is being paid off with return visits and acknowledgement that this part of the county is both beautiful and quite unique.
To read entire the story, click here.
I had never heard of Forks before I read Twilight. Now, it’s on my list of places to visit. I think that kind of publicity can really be good for a small town.
Did you know about Forks before Twilight? Have you been to Forks?
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I’d never heard of forks, but as with you it has now been added to my list of places to visit!!
I never heard of Forks either till I read Twilight. As soon as I started reading I looked this place up. It is beautiful there,BUT, OMG,The Rain! It hasn’t been much better here lately.[Connecticut]Anyway, it was so cool to see this place really existed,and La Push,and First Beach,and all the places in the book.If you log in there,it will show you all the places Bella and Edward were at. SOOOOO COOOOL!
Two years ago if anybody would have told me I would visit a little town called Forks, WA I would have thought them crazy! But last year I went for Stephenie Meyer day & fell in love w/it!Can’t wait to go back & hike the Hoh & have a bonfire at LaPush again! It is breathtakingly beautiful. Can’t wait to take the family!
How sweet is this? =)
I live in Washington and have been to Forks too many times to remember, my mom and I camp up there at least once a summer in these adorable cabins that you can rent (they are really no bigger than a studio apartment). It’s a beautiful town and I’ve visited 90% of the places she’s mentioned in the book, city and location wise. I would deff. recommend heading there during the late spring/summer, unless you like the endless grey skies and constant downpour
then be my guest go during the fall/winter
I’ve been to Forks twice since February!
I am planning a holiday to the US April/May 2010 so one of the places I am going to is Seattle and I believe its not far from there so I will definitely go visit since I am so close.
I’d never heard of Forks before Twilight, but I most definitely added it to my “Places to Visit Before I Die” list! =]
I went up there a few months ago and loved it. It is exactly how you picture it in the book. I went up to the Hoh rainforest and I went to La Push and First Beach. I plan on going again soon!
same here i never heard of forks before the twilight saga.. now im dying to go ! ha
It’s so wonderful how you can really experience a place that is so vivid in your imagination from reading a book that you love so much. I can’t wait until I can go visit Forks. It’s funny how I used to plan my vacations to be in tropical places like Hawaii, but now I am wanting to travel to a place where it rains and is cloudy quite a bit of the year, lol.
I never heard of Forks before Twilight came out but you can bet now that I will be visiting. I plan to visit this Fall to get a wonderful experience before going to see New Moon in theaters. I love small towns and the weather is so interesting to me so you can bet I will be there.
i have actually heard of the town a couple of times before twilight. I have had a trip to the hoh for quite a while, a friend of mine went and she brought back pictures, then when it was mentioned in the novel i was set on going next year
I visited Forks in March of this year and took the Twilight Tour offered by the wonderful folks at Dazzled by Twilight (a store completely dedicated to the Stephenie Meyer books). I HIGHLY recommend the tour, which is given by a young man named Travis. We drove to Forks from Seattle and it was just a magical experience from start to finish. I fell in LOVE with Forks, LaPush (especially First Beach where we saw whales that day), and Lake Crescent. I didn’t want to ever leave and I can’t wait to go back. Sadly it may be a while, since I live in Florida. GO SEE IT!!! Even if you take the Twilight phenomenon out of the equation, the Olympic Peninsula in itself is a breathtaking, unforgettable place.
I never heard of Forks before Twilight, even when I read the book, I thought the place was fiction, but it got the better of me and I goggled it. Hey,sure enough it’s real , I would love to go there and do a Twilight Tour , and Vancouver and Montepulciano and and and ahhh to be able to travel to the Twilight Zone would be so GREAT……
Isn’t it amazing how small the world has become because of these books?
I live not far from Forks and have cousins who live there. Years ago (40 about), I was a long distance operator in Seattle, and placing phone calls to Forks was one of my jobs. It wasn’t an easy call, because at that time not everyone in town had phones. We had to do what was called a ring down. We called the central line and announced who the call was for. If that person had a phone, it was put through. If not, a message was taken and the person would have to call back. A lot has changed since then.
Our family often went to LaPush to go surfing, because that’s one of the things my dad was into. He was friends with the Quileute chief, which gave us access to beaches that only tribal members could go to.
One of the reasons I started reading these books was because they took place in Forks. I was even pleased to see my own town Sequim mentioned in Breaking Dawn.
It’s really kick when our Twilight is front page news of our local newspaper. I’ve saved them all for my scrapbook.
If you get a chance to go to Forks for Bella’s birthday, I recommend it. It was a lot of fun last year.