Pilgrim Hot Springs is a subarctic oasis full of tundra trees and bubbling hot springs. From a distance you see pine trees and balsam poplar trees swaying in the wind. There are old farm buildings, some rusted out equipment, and steam is rising from the lush landscape. It’s a strange scene that you don’t expect to see in the Arctic tundra. However, as you start to walk around the springs, you realize that the buildings you saw in the distance are actually abandoned and run down up close. The area has been abandoned for years, and has been left to be taken over by the trees.

An Epidemic in Nome

In 1919 a Catholic mission was built at the Pilgrim Hot Springs outside of Nome. The area was in the throws of the 1918 Spanish flu which had killed millions of people worldwide. It spread to the Seward Peninsula when a passenger carried the virus to Nome on the last steamship of the season. The flu soon spread inland, where Natives with no resistance to the virus had no chance. All the people in the village of York died, as did 72 of 80 in Brevig Mission. All together, more than 1,200 died on the peninsula. Via Alaska Dispatch News

The Catholic Diocese of Nome had acquired the Pilgrim Springs homestead in 1917 and decided to use the land as an orphanage and mission to house the many children who survived the epidemic, but their families didn’t. A number of buildings were constructed with luxuries like flush toilets and hot water heating thanks to the nearby hot springs. The children lived in dorms, and there was a church and living quarters for the 20 priests, nuns, brothers and others.

Over the years, the flu orphans became adults and the orphanage closed in 1941. And that’s exactly how you’ll see if today – frozen in 1941; abandoned, derelict, and surrounded by tundra trees.

Abandoned Pilgrim Hot Springs Photography

Bring your camera because this is a fascinating place to capture. It’s colorful, eerie, historical, remote, and my favorite – abandoned.