Actress Cynthia Geary may not have been familiar with the towns of Nederland, Central City, or Black Hawk before, but she is absolutely familiar with the community that forms in small towns such as those in the Peak to Peak area. She grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, with three siblings, and was able to know all of her friends’ parents, grandparents, brothers, and sisters during her time there. She still has a group chat with seven other people from Mississippi, where they talk frequently.

Of those friends, she says, “I don’t know whether we’d be friends now if we met. We’ve had totally different lives and everybody’s done different things, but because we grew up together, I know they have my back.” She loves that she has gotten to know and stay close with people with entirely different backgrounds, as she feels it wouldn’t have been the same had she not grown up in a small town such as Jackson.

She compares this feeling of unexpected camaraderie to the connections shared between the characters on the hit 90s show Northern Exposure, in which she played the role of Shelly Tambo. After being cast in the show, she and the other cast members – which included Rob Morrow, Janine Turner, Barry Corbin, Darren E. Burrows, John Cullum, John Corbett, and Elaine Miles – were moved from LA or New York to Bellevue, Washington, where they stayed in furnished apartments in the same building complex during the first season.

These cast members didn’t know each other yet, but they didn’t know anyone else in the area, either, so they started spending time together as a group. This allowed them to form a bond as a community and cast and allowed the chemistry between them to come through as well as it did in the finished show.

According to Geary, Northern Exposure was also one of the first TV shows to shoot on location. Because of this, studio executives from Universal often did not interfere with the creation of the show, leaving the cast and crew to make the show the way they wanted to. While interiors were shot in a warehouse in Bellevue, exteriors were shot in the town of Roslyn, Washington, which looks exactly like it does on television. Geary praises the community of Roslyn for being kind and welcoming the shooting of the show.

Once again, Geary points to a dynamic that was present in the fictional town of Cicely, Alaska, that could only have come about because it was such a small town. Geary points to the various characters of the show – an uptight doctor from New York, a neurotic bush pilot, an egotistical businessman and astronaut, a radio DJ with a criminal history, a Native American teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker, and a Canadian trapper in a relationship with a much younger Canadian beauty queen, among others – and emphasizes how different they are in their backgrounds, but how the small town of Cicely ultimately brings them together, despite the disagreements they may have. They all know each other, they all care about each other’s well-being, and they all wish the best for each other despite their differences. It’s the kind of mentality that is only present in small towns such as Cicely, and it’s the kind of dynamic that Northern Exposure absolutely nailed.

If you want to see Cynthia Geary in a brand new show, you can catch her in Going Home, streaming now on Pureflix.