FORKS — The Other, David Guterson’s novel about a young man who hikes into the rain forest to live seven years as “the hermit of the Hoh,” isn’t terribly far-fetched, say two who know the West End well.
“People set up beach shanties on the wilderness coastline during the hippie era,” said Mike Gurling, who spent 19 years as an Olympic National Park ranger.
Last year he became manager of the Forks Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center, where he encounters another breed of seeker.
“Now people are coming out here for Twilight,” Stephenie Meyer’s teen romance-horror novel featuring a young vampire undead in Forks.
These days the Visitor Center sends readers on guided “Twilight Tours” of key places portrayed in the book.
“One guy called and said, ‘I hear there’s a real problem out there with vampires,'” Gurling added.
“When I told him, ‘That’s fiction,’ he said, ‘There are werewolves out there, too.'”
