A Course In Miracles: The Place Called Holden Village

My interest in Holden Village began in 1996, the summer following my graduation from Deuel High School. As a graduation present, Aunt Karen planned a vacation for Ellen and I to Washington state, to visit her home in Richland and tour the Pacific Northwest. Not only was it our first ride in an airplane...it was the first time we had been out of the Midwest, sans a band trip to Florida to visit Disney World on a tour bus. We arrived in WA on Karen's birthday, and after spending the first couple days of our vacation in Richland, we left on June 17th for Lake Chelan.

Journal entry from June 17, 1996:
"At about 3:30 we arrived at Lake Chelan in the Wenatchee National Forest after stopping at the Wild Horses Monument. This place is beautiful. The lake is encompassed by mountains. The mountains reach up and touch the heavens. We have a campsite and will spend the night in the wilderness! I guess the lake is really deep-but it's extremely clear. Too bad it's also very cold.

We took a nature walk that was absolutely beautiful. Sitting here on the dock the world goes away. Thoreau was right-nature heals a soul and mends the heart. Right here and now I feel free."

During our stay at Lake Chelan, Karen mentioned the place called Holden Village, a remote re-purposed mining town deep in the mountains, inaccessible to motor vehicles, where people journeyed for spiritual renewal. Almost immediately, Holden established mythical residence inside my soul..and I knew that someday, hopefully, I would return to Lake Chelan to embark on the journey. Fifteen years later, I was boarding the Lady of the Lake, my heart compass pointed toward Holden, along with my husband and three young sons.

Life is beautiful.

"Between 1938 and 1957, the docks at Lucerne teemed with activity. Trucks loaded with copper ore rumbled down the road to the boat landing. A crane loaded the 5-ton steel ore drums for shipment. The ore was mined and milled at Holden, 12 miles up the valley. In its day, the Holden Mine was the largest copper mine in the state of Washington.

J.H. Holden discovered the ore body in 1896 after a fellow miner burned off the timber in the upper valley to aid prospecting efforts. For forty years, the promise of wealth in the mine remained tantalizingly out of reach for Holden, and after his death, other developers. The critical factor was the expense of building a railroad to such a remote site. A 3-foot wide grade, still visible on the Lucerne bar, remains from aborted railroad building efforts.

During those 40 years, technology and destiny were merging. Truck transportation evolved as a more economical means of transportation, a key element in the Holden Mine to make profits from relatively low grade ore. The 2,000 foot incline railway, built just up lake here at Lucerne, represented the technological tie between rail and truck transportation.

With the onset of World War II, and the consequent rise in copper prices, the Holden Mine began 20 years of operation that yielded 212 million pounds of copper, as well as smaller amounts of zinc, silver, and gold. The mine closed in 1957 due to dropping copper prices, depleted ore stockpiles, and worn out capital equipment. Today, water fills most of the tunnels and the mine lies in ruin. The town buildings still stand, today housing the Lutheran retreat center, Holden Village."

Copper Mountain

Opening to the mine shaft

Arsenic continues to pour out of the flooded mine tunnels, polluting Railroad Creek

The Village

Our accommodations, main floor of Lodge 2

Room 11, equipped with a bunk for Collin and Aaron, a pack and play for Nolan, and a queen size bed for Adam and I. Adam also secured Room 12 upon our arrival, as a purgatory for smelly hiking clothes and Fuzzi Bunz.