Tsek Hotspring, Early Improvements

    It was the early sixties during an Easter fishing trip out of the family's logging camp at Port Douglas I first visited the hot spring that would become such a big part of my later life. My Dad parked the truck on the little used forest access road that was just above, and we skidded down a well used trail to the area below.

   It was like nothing I had seen before in my ten years. The source water percolated up out of the gravels in a tiny, very hot pool with a pipe running to the wooden shelters. I remember the top section on the feed pipe, it was an open trough that you put rocks into to control the flow of water. There didn't seem to be any means of getting cold water to the tubs, and the small hot spring pool meant the water was quite hot so careful regulation of the in-coming flow was essential. By careful placement of rocks in the trough unwanted hot water would simply spill out. I've always remembered that simple, but effective bush engineering. Dad told me the local natives down river at Skookumchuck used the hot spring quite often. He told me of an old timer he knew that for years, walked the 4 mile round trip almost every day.

                                                                                 

     This was taken in 1958, but pretty much what I recall the first time I was brought to the hot spring as a youngster. I clearly remember the sound of the water, and the heady, steamy aroma of the cedar tubs inside the shacks.

   Over the years there were several variations of tubs and shelters initiated by users. This later structure was on site in the 70's, at the site of the present outside lean-to tub. I visited several times in the early 1980's, and recall a tub of plywood lined with plastic, a little ways to the right of the present lean-to structure. It appears to have been buried by gravel wash from the road above, I've come across bits of it during digging and working around there. Quite a bit of the area where the present tubs are located is gravel that washed off the road above during bad rainstorms. I dug down 2 feet once putting the donation box in and hit a metallic object. I thought it was a gold rush artifact, but after carefully getting it out with my hands, it turned out to be a flattened out old Hires root-beer can.
   I dug a hole to plant a tree just across the bridge once, and found a beautiful jade hide scraper that had been lost possibly hundreds of years ago. That artifact was given to the local people, and is stored with other important early archaeological finds from the territory.

For hundreds, maybe thousands of years the local peoples came to the 15 gallon per minute flow of hot water that sprung from the hill-side not far from the Lillooet River, and the hot spring held great spiritual significance to them, but I'm sure at some point someone decided to cut a stick back or move a rock or two or whatever, making what they considered an improvement to the site.
    In the mid 1800's a short-lived gold rush trail was constructed through the remote valley, a bath house was put up on the hot spring site, which was described by travelers at the time as "a crude wooden affair'.  Over the next 150 years people made what they figured where small improvements to the site, some good, some not so much.

This is what things looked like when I came to the hot spring property in 1994.

The source as it was. It was normal back then for people to have to dig out the source on occasion and patch-up the pipes to get hot water to the tubs, and everyone had their own idea how it should be done of course, resulting in an odd array of engineering.

   Cold water was used to dilute the hot water to the tubs, it was drawn from a ditch up on the other side of the old road, relying on a siphon effect. It seemed it was all or nothing, and often would drain the lukewarm water from the slimy ditch above in one great slurping rush. It was natural run off, so in the summer it was not uncommon to have very little or no cool water to work with.
The place had character though.

 The original a-frame was not lacking in character either, the crude shack was constructed of odd bits of lumber and driftwood bits packed in by campers, including an old bullet-hole ridden road sign or two incorporated into the design.

Inside there were years of graffiti scribbled on most every dry surface.

That first year, a pool was built up to better utilize the hot spring flow and boulders were brought in for the retaining wall against the bank, designed to divert storm run-off from the old road above away from the hot spring source and lower area.

   In 1996, to better address the cold water issues I rolled out a one inch water line all the way from the tub area to a spot halfway up the Sparrow Creek falls, I forget how far is was, but it took several thousand feet of line to reach, and for the first time ever, there was clean, cold water under pressure that you could regulate at the tubs, and fed several water taps located around the campsite. The water-line ran along the surface, in cold weather it could freeze for months. In summer bears would sometimes come across it, and for some reason be compelled bite into it getting a face full of cold water for his efforts I would imagine. The pressure at the tubs would drop off and I'd have to follow the line back until I came across a giant spray of water shooting out of the chewed water-line.
In 2000, a water-line from the cabin here was buried in a trench several thousand feet down to the hot spring, and a reliable year round source was initiated. That same year a power-line from the main place here was strung in trees all the way down to the caretakers area at the entrance.

   In 1996 I decided it was time to build my own 'crude wooden affair'. The decrepit old shack was torn down and a little vegetation cleared out, concrete blocks were set and a platform built, the log work was done up here at my old log-pile, then packed in and re-assembled at the hot spring.

   Later that same year I started on the lean-to structure. The tub was pulled up and a timber foundation put underneath. Rapid algae build-up was always an issue with the outside tub exposed to the sun-light, and the idea of the shelter there was to keep the tub open-air but block out the sun. I had it all figured out so I thought with the track of the sun to block out 60 percent of it. I think it helped.
They call this the star gazing tub.

In march '97 the 'Jacuzzi tub' was constructed.

  Large flat rocks for the walkways came from a spot near the end of Lilloet Lake, hauled back to the hot spring with great effort and set in place. Two wooden walk-ways were added over the creek.

The much photographed 5 foot high welcome bench at the entrance was done in 1998.

 

 A huge cedar was cut on the mill, a pattern was traced out on the slab, then a router was used to take out everything but the logo. Back then the place was known by three names, depending whom you talked to, I decided to put all three on there to avoid too much confusion at the entrance.

I added some picnic tables in 1998, starting with raw logs.

 In 2003 I hauled in a good size section of fir to the campsite and stood it up on end with the aid of my tractor. My friend Stefan (simplyartist.com) came and camped out for a few days, and with the aid of his chainsaw and various grinding tools created 'The Bear'. 

And he's stood watch over the place ever since.

New phone booths in the campsite were added periodically over the years.

 

    1958

                                1994

 2005. What a difference 50 years make.

Further hot spring reading, or use the search bar top left.
 https://hotspringlodge.blogspot.com/2011/11/box-notes.html
https://hotspringlodge.blogspot.com/2013/02/hot-spring-house-1859-1866.html
https://hotspringlodge.blogspot.com/search?q=trees+behaving+badly
https://hotspringlodge.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-card-from-hot-springs-1865.html