Wrangell gal appears on British Television

With its abundance of mountains, seascape, wildlife and local color, Wrangell is no stranger to television.

For instance, contractors at The Marine Service Center were featured on National Geographic Channel's series "The Yard," with episodes first being aired in 2016. Another show has shined a spotlight on the island this month, with BBC Two exploring the fish-out-of-water theme in "The Life Swap Adventure."

The premise of the six-episode series takes residents from around the United Kingdom and has them trade places with people from around the world. In the five episodes aired so far, locales have included Guyana in South America, Malawi in Central Africa, Taiwan, Nashville and now Wrangell.

For the trade-off, Leslie Cummings was picked on the Alaska end of things. She had first heard of the proposed program in January 2016, after receiving an email.

"The BBC was looking for people to participate in a life swap adventure," she recounted. After checking to make sure the item wasn't some sort of scam, she went through the application process.

"It asked really strange questions, like: 'What is your biggest regret?' 'How do you feel about England?' That kind of thing," she said.

Cummings, who owns Grand View Bed and Breakfast and whose husband, Alan, works in the petroleum industry, caught the British network's attention. It reached out to her, arranging an interview over Skype.

Cummings said she had explained about her job, her family life, ambitions and pastimes. "They said, 'Oh, you like to hunt?'" After also speaking with her husband, Cummings said she was told they were among the series' final candidates, with another subject up in Haines.

As the selection process continued, the show's mechanics became worrisome. In particular, Cummings was concerned about the bed and breakfast, and how the program might impact its business. Once she learned she had been selected to do the show, Cummings hired on Jill Privett as an assistant at the Grand View, to help see to business while she was away.

"She was perfect, because she was like Leslie Jr.," she said.

There was little preparation for the show itself, with the swap taking place last September. Cummings' counterpart was a similarly-aged woman named Lilian, who had no idea where she would be taken. Cummings only knew she was headed to the United Kingdom, and was flown into London. After clearing customs, Cummings was blindfolded and taken by car to a London hotel. She was instructed to avoid newspapers and television, and after a sleepless night was ready to start her 12-day adventure.

"They put me in a blindfold, and they put me in a car," she said. The show's runner took her on a drive for three and a half hours, providing no information as to what Cummings could expect. "What I was thinking was they were going to do an extreme contrast, you know, Alaska girl, country, big city London."

She was only half-right, ending up in suburban Yorkshire. "They take off the blindfold and I have no idea where I am. I'm in this big town square and I'm in Nottingham, England," she said. "The first thing is I look up at this big clock tower, clanging, and I'm like 'Oh my gosh, is that Big Ben?' And they all start cracking up. So I come off as a stupid American right off the bat."

Cummings was then given a name, a placename and a £10 note, with instructions to find where she was supposed to be. She had to find a Lilian and Stuart in a Trowell Grove – it was not until much later she realized the place was a road in nearby Long Eaton, a suburb of Nottingham. Getting the information and catching a bus took her about eight and a half hours before finding her new, temporary home.

"I finally find the place. It's a military family, the husband is a colonel in the Queen's Army," Cummings explained. Once settled in, production kept to a hectic pace.

"I was definitely on a schedule," she said. "We were always on the run. We were filming 12, 16 hours a day. If I got to bed by midnight I was lucky."

Lilian works in a local clinic as a nurse, so Cummings spent a day experiencing her counterpart's life there. She also got to experience different aspects of British life, and was surprised at the country's diversity and history.

"It was a life-changing experience for me, it was amazing," said Cummings. In particular she loved the country's history, "how it was really old and important-feeling. It's kind of like our motherland; the Pilgrims came from there, you know, and I could recognize so much that we've stole from them," such as the familiar place names.

In one anecdote, she recalled visiting Stuart's military base. "We walked into this entryway. There was this big cherry wood table, it was just gorgeous. And I comment on it, and Stuart said, 'Oh, it's Napoleon's table.' And I said, 'How do you know it was Napoleon's table?' 'Because we stole it from him!'"

In addition to the experiences the BBC production wanted her to try, Cummings had two things on her to do list. One of them was to see a real castle, of which there were plenty in the Yorkshire countryside. One day she was able to take an extensive ride to see her surrounds.

The other was to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, to see how those work on the other side of the Atlantic. "It was the same. It was hysterical, I loved it. They were the same as us, they just talk funny. Or we talk funny," she added.

While Cummings enjoyed the history of the place, what she didn't enjoy was the perceived impersonality of England. "Nobody will look you in the eye. It's very impersonal, there's no sense of community," she found. Another aspect had been British cuisine. "They didn't have coffee, and that was almost a deal-breaker."

Meanwhile in America, Lilian had a relatively easier time of things. After arriving at the airport, she had met up with Margaret McLaughlin outside her home on Evergreen Road, and right off the bat was directed to the Grand View.

"Lilian's here, and it's in September. So it's hunting season, and Alan takes her over to Zarembo (Island) to go hunting, and she's absolutely petrified about shooting a deer," Cummings later learned. Overall, the experience had been a good one, and Cummings felt Wrangell came out looking the better for it.

The two finally met on Cummings' return to Wrangell. "She loved it, she never wanted to leave," she said. "She just had the time of her life. They were having barbecues on the beach, and sunsets, and orcas, and trips on the boat to Zarembo.

"I'll be forever grateful to the BBC for this opportunity," Cummings commented. "It changed my life and made me look at things from a new perspective. And Lilian and her family, and they were so gracious and kind and welcoming."

It was her first trip abroad, and while the experience had been hectic and more daunting than she first expected, she was glad to have participated. "If I'd have known what it was going to entail before I left, I probably wouldn't have done it."

Since its airing on June 4 on BBC Two, Cummings has received an outpouring of feedback from viewers in the UK, getting 55 one day before her interview with the Sentinel. The messages have mostly been positive, she said, like "'You made me think of things that I haven't thought of,' and 'You're so inspiring.'"