Tenakee Springs is centered around a tub. Right in the middle of town, at the top of the dock, a natural hot spring bubbles out of the ground. The Tlingit used it for ceremonial rituals, but since the early 1900s the pale-faced settlers have used it to clean up after a long day of work. A bath house was built around it and the hours are posted. Clothing is not allowed so men and women have different time slots. The rules are simple enough.
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| Soaking Tub |
We were told that around half of the old houses in the town do not have showers. This is what they use instead. They are kind enough to let passing cruisers and fishermen use the tub as well. At 106 degrees you don't linger in the water, but it felt great. Had the place to myself, but as I was leaving, 2 older men came in for a rinse at the end of the day. The women have dibs from 6-10 PM.
This is a quiet, cute community with friendly folks that tell stories about arriving 25 years ago and just never leaving. The 6 or so kids scurry around town, and folks move around town on their ATVs or carts. They share what they hunt and work a large community garden in the summer. The ferry used to come from Juneau twice a week, but as the population has declined since the 1970's logging boom, they are lucky to see a ferry twice a month. The school no longer operates, but they make the facilities available to the community for anything they need - cooking, basketball, home schooling. The seaplanes do come and go almost daily but they are weather dependent. This past winter, the bay froze over for the first time in decades, and the locals were cut off for months until it thawed. The local restaurant was not yet open for the summer season (guess summer starts late up here). But Ruth at the historic Blue Moon Cafe served us an awesome piece of rhubarb pie and coffee. It was a quiet night in the harbor, and we left the next morning. Probably a good thing; we could have stayed. There was a little house for sale.
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| Local Mercantile |
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| Community Hot Spring Bath House |
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| Outer Breakwater |
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