Breaking Dawn movie: The Twilight saga's magical effect on Forks, the town that won the Hollywood lottery
I have driven maybe three blocks in from the edge of town, heading slowly along the main drag of Forks Avenue, when the thought really hits me: This place is spooky.
The buildings on either side are as flat and grey as the autumn sky above, featureless but for the one word that seems to crop up incessantly. It is there on shop fronts and store windows, usually daubed in florid script in shades of jet black or dusky red: Twilight.
Northern exposure: Twilight has thrust the small Washington State town of Forks onto the map
Six years ago, few people had heard of Forks. There was no need to. A small town pinned to the far edge of the USA, a tiny dot on the map where north-westerly Washington State pushes its shoulder against Canada, it was barely of note to Americans, let alone tourists.
But then came Harry Potter and his box-office magic notwithstanding what has been the biggest publishing phenomenon and movie series that this millennium has yet seen.
On the surface, The Twilight Saga there have been three films so far, all recreating the novels of Utah-based author Stephenie Meyer is a standard tale of high-school romance, two boys competing for the affections of a single girl.
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But the series's unusual twist on the classic love triangle that one of the rivals is a vampire, the other a werewolf has entranced teenage (and older) cinema-goers everywhere, and made stars of the actors who bring the drama to the screen (the vampiric Robert Pattinson, the lupine Taylor Lautner and maiden-in-the-middle Kristen Stewart). It has also made an unlikely celebrity of Forks, the remote and otherwise nondescript outpost in which Twilight is set.
Wild: Forks sits just inland from the Washington State coast - and dramatic coves such as Ruby Beach
Forks's tourism industry has grown by 1000 per cent since the first novel was published in 2005, and will swell again when the franchise's fourth film, Breaking Dawn Part 1, is released on November 18.
But its rise to fame has been entirely fortuitous. Meyer had not visited the town when she plucked it from obscurity. She wanted a suitably dark and gloomy environment for her angst-ridden fiction, and on learning that the Olympic Peninsula the wild, forested landmass on which Forks sits is the most rainy location in America, selected the only town of any size on its coast. A legend was born.
Pulling up outside the Forks Chamber Of Commerce a wooden hut on the south edge of town that doubles as a tourist information booth I notice a chart on the wall that records levels of rainfall, its uppermost arrow revealing that the town receives 120 inches a year.
I notice a few other things too: cardboard cut-outs of the Twilight characters (signed by the actors) wedged against the windows; two red pick-up trucks, as driven by Stewart's character Bella Swan, parked alongside; a vast array of Twilight souvenirs on sale withi! n.
Celebrity status: Twilight has made superstars of (left to right) Taylor Lautner, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson - evidence of which (right) appears in the windows and shop fronts of Forks at almost every turn
Forks has embraced the Twilight phenomenon with the gratitude of a lottery winner who has scooped the jackpot. Indeed, this is exactly what you would expect of a drab lumber town, caught in a two-decade economic slump, that is suddenly handed a golden ticket.
But what makes its enthusiasm a little strange is that while the books are set here, not one second of the movies has been shot in its streets (most of the filming has been done to the south in Oregon, or north of the Canadian border in British Columbia). Anyone visiting Forks to experience the Twilight realm will find nothing that is visually recognisable.
Walking around in search of the major 'sights' guided by the 'Forks Twilight Map' that is provided by the Chamber of Commerce I begin to find the whole situation deeply odd, even unnerving. Random properties have set themselves up as Twilight landmarks.
In some cases, this means a whole-hearted rush to board the bandwagon the local florist has given over half its floor space to Twilight T-shirts and posters. In others, it means a curious invitation to have your privacy invaded. Out on K Street, an unremarkable house has been deemed 'Home Of The Swans' via a rudimentary sign hammered into its lawn, its residents apparently willing to have people wandering past at all hours to take photos.
In the red: Trucks similar to those driven in the films ! by Bella Swan can be seen at the Chamber Of Commerce
Stranger still is the Miller Tree Inn, a white clapboard hotel that markets itself as the home of Pattinson's vampire heart-throb Edward Cullen.
The inn's own website admits that "it looks nothing like the movie version", but that has not stopped the owners from propping another cut-out of the star in an upstairs window, or from leaving hand-written notes, purportedly from members of the Cullen family, on the porch for guests to read.
Yet there is clearly an appetite for such fantasy. Everywhere I look there are families usually including one wide-eyed teenager ambling between the 'attractions'. You can even book a tour (via Twilight Tours In Forks, twilighttoursinforks.com) that ferries you to other hotspots that 'appear' in the saga the police station, the hospital, the school.
One major Twilight site lurks beyond Forks. It takes me some 20 minutes to drive the 14 miles, spearing west along a shadowy highway shrouded by fir trees, to the Quileute Reserve, and the small settlement of La Push.
This Native American enclave is the 'home' of the second romantic protagonist, Lautner's muscular teen-wolf Jacob Black. And here, the dash to cash in continues, notably in a coffee shop next to the main hotel that is billed as 'Jacob's Java'. As well as caffeine, it serves Twilight-themed fruit smoothies, including 'The Cullen's Craving' (which, naturally, consists mainly of blood-imitating strawberries).
Fitting the picture: The Miller Tree Inn has taken on the role of the Cullen house in Forks
Just beyond, the ocean roars to land on First Beach, a strip of sand whose appearance emphasises the craggy isolation of this final American frontier.
Technically, it belongs to the same continental flank as Los Angeles, but there is nothing of California's sunny disposition about ! this wav e-lashed crescent. Its sand is damp and sullen, laden with the dead trunks of giant cedars, fallen soldiers of the rainforest condemned to a watery grave, but rejected by the Pacific. They lie where the tide has thrown them, unwanted and lost.
And it is here not in movie idols and teen chic, but in the raw grandeur of its scenery that this portion of Washington State truly astounds.
Having ticked Forks from my list, I spend two days exploring the tattered edge of this often overlooked area: the dense green of the Olympia National Park, laced with hiking trails; the quiet majesty of the Quinault Rainforest, where trees reach for the heavens; another dose of seafront wonder at Ruby Beach, where ragged rocks lurk off-shore, the Pacific howling as it finds its path blocked.
Ultimately, the road leads me north, away from Forks, towards the most north-westerly point of mainland America. Cape Flattery is reached via an increasingly narrow and twisting set of highways, but it is worth the difficulty of the journey.
Curious: The Inn even leaves out notes for Twilight fans, purporting to be from the Cullens
This is the end of the line. I arrive on a misty morning, but Canada in the hazy form of Vancouver Island can be seen winking across the deep trench of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. To the west, meanwhile, the Pacific Ocean is a blank canvas, desolate and chill all the way to Japan.
Here is a picture of rare beauty. And one that will linger long after the Hollywood gravy train with its vampires, werewolves and damsels in distress has left for a new station.
Travel Facts
Timeless Travel (0844 809 4299; www.timelesstravel.co.uk) offers an 18-night 'Cascades to Coast' fly-drive in Washington State from 1799 per person, based on two sharing, with flights! to Seat tle, accommodation and car hire. Shorter itineraries available on request.
Double rooms at the Miller Tree Inn (001 360 374 6806; www.millertreeinn.com) in Forks cost from US$115 (73) per night, including breakfast.
British Airways (0844 493 0787; www.ba.com) flies to Seattle from Heathrow once a day.
For more information on Washington State, see www.experiencewa.com and www.visitseattle.org.
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