Soaking in the summertime at Pilgrim Hot Springs 

By Anna Lionas

   It was a busy day on the Kougarok Road last Saturday, as caravans of vehicles were visible for miles by the dust plumes they left in their wake. They were headed for Pilgrim Hot Springs for the first ever Mini Music Festival.   
Seward Peninsula weather is infamously unpredictable, a lesson on appreciating the good days. Last Saturday, rounding Dexter Bypass it didn’t seem like there was much hope for a break in the clouds and grey, but the sky parted, pouring sunshine across the tundra.
As guests arrived at Pilgrim, they marveled at the gorgeous day laid out for them. 
While known to many as Pilgrim, the hot spring has another name, Unaatuq, Inupiaq for hot. 
 It did seem preordained to perfection, sun beating down on the oasis, tall verdant grass blowing gently in the wind. A whole world nestled at the bottom of the still snowy Kigluaiks.
“We ordered the weather in,” joked Kelsey Galleher, general manager of Unaatuq, the entity that owns the Pilgrim Hot Springs property.
Unaatuq LLC is a consortium of seven tribes and entities governed by a board of directors, with Kawerak and Bering Strait Native Corporation being co-managing partners, and Kawerak handling the day-to-day business.
“I think it’s important to tell the story of our names and acknowledge and honor, you know, the many different people and the really rich history that’s part of what makes this place so special,” Unaatuq Cultural Advisory Committee Member Chandre Szafran said.
Despite the heat, many guests arrived dressed in long sleeves, due to the torrential supply of mosquitoes lording over the festival.
Admission was free and many strolled right over to the hot spring pool and tubs to soak and avoid getting bit, though the hot air made it difficult to sit for long.
It seemed the pesky bugs were as happy about the turnout as organizer and Pilgrim’s Sustainability Coordinator Arlo Hannigan.
“It was pretty special,” Hannigan said about the event. “So many folks came up to me and said they’ve never been out here before, and these are people that I’ve known forever.”
The skeeters feasted on the 140 guests who passed through that Saturday, rolling in and out of the hot spring on bikes, ATVs, trucks and vans. 
The show was supposed to start around 2 p.m., but everyone was operating on Nome time —no need to rush when the sun never sets –so those who arrived early, like the King Island Dance group, commandeered one of the two netted tents assembled by the staff buildings and settled in for a late lunch.
A group of ladies wandered over to the garden, practicing their dances and laughing on their walk. Every 50 feet or so they stopped to apply more mosquito repellant.
“Oh, I just love this place,” Linda Kimoktoak said, emerging from the path into the lush yard where the garden flourishes.
Nearby stand the structures that once made up the orphanage and schoolhouse. Pilgrim’s traumatic history is often acknowledged and brought up on the grounds, to educate. In the early 20th century children from Mary’s Igloo, Nome and the region were brought to Pilgrim. Many were raised there as orphans following the Spanish flu outbreak in 1918.
In 2009, a consortium of entities bought Pilgrim from the Catholic Bishop of Northern Alaska. Its current ownership under Unaatuq consists of BSNC, Council Native Corporation, White Mountain Native Corporation, Mary’s Igloo Native Corporation, Kawerak, Inc., Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation and Sitnasuak Native Corporation. Unaatuq’s mission is “to promote the wellbeing of our people through sharing, protecting, and responsibly developing the resources of Pilgrim Hot Springs.”
As more people arrived, they greeted friends and fell into groups to mill about the grounds. Performances could wait, it was enough to just be present in such a beautiful place.
Tucked away, the garden is in its early stages, eager to flourish. The rows of beets, turnips, broccoli and lettuce will be harvested later this summer and sold in Nome. Dreams of expansion and a longer growing season are in the works, but are dependent on one of Pilgrim’s biggest projects yet: a geothermal power plant.
Whispers of it have been in the works since the 1980s but after a 2014 feasibility study by the Alaska Center for Energy and Power, the project was seriously considered.
With the help of a series of federal grants that are secured, construction will begin next summer on a geothermal power plant on site, with completion estimated in 2027, Galleher said. The small but mighty 75-kilowatt plant will afford power to all the buildings and the greenhouse.
 It will also make it a lot easier for caretakers to come up in the winter and work on things year-round. 
Last year Unaatuq saw a lot of upgrades: A new changing cabin and installation of three soaking tubs which pipe the hot spring water into the cedar barrels, a passion project for Hannigan, and a nod to the old tubs used at the springs in the 1970s and 1980s.
The barrels have mixed results, though. Hannigan said it’s hard to regulate the water temperature without an automatic gauge, which could be a benefit installed after the power plant is up and running.
“It’s like goldilocks,” Tommy Nguyen commented while sitting in the “just right” tub out of the three. Those brave enough to risk the too hot or too cold were still afforded a sweeping view of the Kigluiak Mountains.
The access road to Pilgrim will also see upgrades. Last year they bought a dozer and have plans to resurface the road that can barely be called that at some points.
“We are in the process of coming up to plan for at least, hopefully filling in a lot of the like large pond areas,” Galleher said.
 
   Over by the main buildings, Landbridge Tollbooth started setting up to kick off the festival in the late afternoon. The five-person band made it out to Pilgrim and played for the crowd sprawled out on chairs, in the grass and hiding in netted tents from mosquitoes.The band jammed amidst the marshy landscape, their songs echoing through the valley.
Shielded by a camouflage bug jacket Roy Ashenfelter, current board chair of Unaatuq, stepped up to the mic and spoke about the many changes the springs have seen over the years and the upcoming geothermal power plant installation.
“It’s just another tribute to the staff that have tried to find ways to make this place a better place for all of us,” Ashenfelter said.
Szafran spoke about the complicated history Unaatuq, that she came to understand from the time her grandfather, Steve Peterson, spent at the boarding school as a child.
“I just wanted to also to honor that history, of the people, the many different people who have passed here and have passed through here,” Szafran said, holding a moment of silence for those who came before the people enjoying the land today.
Joining together for their performance the St. Lawrence Island and King Island Dance groups drummed and danced with their arms to the bright blue sky. Waving and moving like the grasses surrounding them. 
Hannigan closed out the performances strumming on his guitar and covering “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” among other melodies.
Sun soaked, spring soaked and full of that carefree summer joy, people packed up and trickled out, most gone by 10 p.m. when the spring closes for the night.
Campers and cabin renters got to experience the quiet calm that settled over the land, taking a dip under the barely sunken midnight sun.

See more photos in the Photo Gallery.

This article was updated to reflect Chandre Szafran is a Unaatuq Cultural Advisory Committee Member, not a board member.