The little town of Tenake

We left early in the morning to get to Tenake with time to explore. Fynn woke up when we were hauling the prawn trap. She just doesn’t sleep through the noises like she used to. Regardless of the tired toddler we were stoked to see about 20 prawns in the trap. That is a big haul for us so far. Where have all the prawns go? My guess is commercial overfishing. I remember these huge hauls of 40 plus prawns when I was a kid. We pulled onto the dock at Tenake after dropping our crab trap among the other traps in the bay. We arrived at the same time as Bob, another Catalina 50, working as a charter boat in SE Alaska. We were invited on board to investigate the layout. As there are only 24 or so of those boats made it is fun to see another in person. Bob looks like it would be lovely to charter. The owners make great hosts and Bob is decked out for cruising Alaska in comfort. The charter doesn’t come cheap though- check it out yourself www.soundsailing.com. Tenake is a super cute tiny little row town, complete with post office, school and library. All for a town of only 40 year round residents! The owner of the Part(y)-Time Bakery is now employed at the post office, but he still opened shop to sell me a loaf of bread he had baked fresh that morning. He also had a big plate of cookies on the desk at the post office for everyone to enjoy.

Cute little place

The warm springs were a different experience though. They are built into a bath house and come bubbling up through a rock fissure into a concrete tub. The bath house has women hours and men hours and is nude only. The water is hot – I would guess 105F and there is a cold hose to cool you off. I didn’t love it like I loved Baranoff but it was still an interesting experience. Fynn’s favourite part was the mile long walk from the marina to the town centre. The whole path was lined with berries. There were mostly salmon berries, but also blueberries, thimble berries, high bush cranberries and raspberries overgrown from gardens. The crabbing was outstanding here and we became a mini crab processing plant at night as the kids slept. Kolby would crack them in half with an axe, I would clean them then we would cook them, cool them and package them for the freezer. Kolby and Fynn also went out fishing for a halibut but came back with a huge cabezon. I filleted it and it cooked like lingcod but it gave me nightmares that night with it’s huge head staring up at me. We won’t be keeping another one of those! Before we left the dock we went for a hike to the suspension bridge, built in the 1970s by the Department of US Highways. We aren’t sure why it’s there but its cool. Along the way we found a old cemetery from the 1910-1930, tucked up high in the woods. This led to some complicated discussions for little Fynn – ‘why baby dead?’ ‘Maybe baby got sick and died.’ ‘Why?’ Good question Fynn, why do babies die?

I have been working on perfecting my fish and chips with proper deep fried fish. We enjoyed attempt number three in a peaceful little cove just outside of Tenake.