From the ecstatic moment a person arrives at Holden Village, an iconic retreat center located in the heart of Washington’s North Cascades Mountains that offers visitors a unique opportunity to step into the wilderness they are greeted with a “Hosti”. This person designs a sign with your name on it to welcome you to the village and answer any questions you may have. From the moment the school bus with Holden Village written on the side was in sight of the village entrance all the way to the time I stepped off said bus I was greeted by most, if not all, of the village waving at me and cheering for my arrival. Before even getting to the village I was required to complete a Child Safety Training which is crucial to the safety, comfort, and well-being of the children that reside in Holden Village. 

I realized that I’ve been saying Holden Village a few times now and some people might not know anything about it. First I want to acknowledge the original people living on this land. We live and gather upon the homelands of the Chelan, the Entiat, the P’Squosa, the Wenatchi-Colville and the Wenatchi-Yakama Tribal Nations. And we commit to resisting erasure of Indigenous people and stories, following Native leadership, and centering tribal voices. Here is some more info on the history of Indigenous people in the area of Holden Village. The official organization “Holden Village” started as a copper mining town. Here is a little bit about that copper mining history. 

Everyone’s travel choice is different when coming to Holden but my journey getting here was very elaborate. My mom and I drove two hours to the airport with stops. We took a 4 hour plane ride from Chicago to Seattle. Then we drove another 4 hours to Chelan, Washington where we stayed in a hotel for the night to then get on at a different boat landing than originally planned. The boat ride was about 45 minutes and then we got on a 45 minute school bus ride to Holden Village.

After finally, arriving at Holden my first thought was, is this a commune? But I later came to learn and humbly understood that it is simply a very rustic, community oriented place where everyone plays a role in the village. After 10+ hours of travel it was overwhelming but comforting to arrive to a warm welcome. I started at Holden around mid-May and I have been working as an Education Assistant where I have accomplished: making flyers to promote the incoming presenters(“teaching faculty”) and guest musicians for each week, setting up housing accommodations for teaching faculty and their guests for each of the 12 weeks of the summer, and setting up info about each faculty session/program per week. Soon I will move to working in “Narnia” the Village school where I will be working with the youth program coordinator. There I will be helping create curriculums and helping out with youth programming.

Esai Hernandez, Holden Village