About Breitenbush
Our mission is to provide a safe and potent environment where people can renew and evolve in ways they never imagined.
All About Breitenbush
✦ The Credo ✦ History ✦ Handbook of Agreements ✦
Our core values: ✦ Stewardship ✦ Community ✦ Well-Being ✦ Sustainability ✦
The Breitenbush Credo
We of the Breitenbush Community dedicate ourselves to living mindfully in the spirit of love, unity, honesty and service.
We see ourselves as guardians of Breitenbush Hot Springs safeguarding the earth and healing water, assuring their continued availability to all beings who respect them.
Our primary service is to provide a healing retreat and conference center, which promotes holistic health and spiritual growth, and facilitates the gathering of people in celebration of the experience of life. Our community is supported by the services we provide.
We are committed to the health and well-being of ourselves and our families, to live, work, play and grow together harmoniously. We mutually support and respect each person’s dignity, and awaken to the spirit within each of us which acknowledges that we are all one.
The community is committed to a life style conducive to holistic childrearing and personal growth.
Our precepts for self growth include: personal accountability, honest communication, awareness of our actions and the quality of their results, directing our energies to the positive, expressing appreciation for what others do, correcting what is clearly not working for the community or for us as individuals, assuming the responsibility for creating and sharing abundance, and choosing and re-choosing to be together.
We structure our lives such that we can experience daily the rewards of success, peacefulness and joy. It is our hope that the thriving community which we create will be an inspiration to others in their exploration of lifestyle and community.
We also extend ourselves to the greater society in which we live, the world community, and commit ourselves to being socially, spiritually, politically and environmentally responsible.
This credo was born of deliberations that lasted weeks in which the small circle of Breitenbush founding members worked hard to articulate its collective vision for the intentional community it was dreaming into. The credo has remained as written and unchanged since voted and agreed upon by consensus in the late 1970’s.
Stewardship - how we serve
We in the Breitenbush Community see ourselves as stewards and guardians of this land, keeping it available to all those who respect its healing waters. We are on native land, and we move from that knowledge. We know that so many different groups have held and visited this land—once known as Altat Satosh—for the last 10,000 years, and we are simply the current stewards in a long line of human history, continuing the tradition of holding this healing space.
In order to hold the highest healing space for our offland community—our guests—we strive to serve from a place of overflow, a state of having capacity to hold for others. This ideal is built into our entire organization, from creating structures that serve staff in work-life balance, like generous PTO and access to organic vegetarian meals, to having a voice and an avenue to be heard when it comes to governance. Breitenbush operates from an understanding that when our people are well-resourced, nourished, healthy, and empowered, we will in turn provide a higher level of care, love, and service to our guests.
Breitenbush is a place unlike anywhere else. We are not just a hot springs; we’re also an intentional community, worker-owned cooperative, conference and retreat center, wilderness resort, and a home. With holding all these different aspects, we also have different agreements for our visitors than traditional hotels or hot springs. We hold this land as sacred, keeping it available to all who respect it. In holding that respect, we have created an experience we call “boundaried service.” This is our home, and a sacred space, and we ask that visitors respect our rules and treat it with the same respect we do. A great way to think about it: “Boundaries are an act of love between ourselves and others.” It is love, and an act of giving to share this space; we hope you feel the same sense of beauty, wonder, and connection during your visit.
Community - who we are
Breitenbush has known many stewards in the last 10,000 years. In this iteration, we have created a worker-owned cooperative business model, as we believe empowered stakeholders help create an organization with the highest levels of care, accountability, and responsibility. Everyone who works at Breitenbush lives together in this intentional community, on 154 acres of rugged wilderness in the beautiful Cascades. We are home here, and show up with a radical level of care and love for this community-run place we all call home. Throughout the year, we’ll host thousands of guests—our offland community—on the property, our emphasis on the service of holding and creating sacred space for them to renew and transform in ways they never imagined. Working at Breitenbush takes a high level of dedication to our service ethic, belief in the mission and values, desire to actively participate, acceptance of personal responsibility, and a willingness to communicate openly and honestly.
We are a small community – especially since the wildfires of 2020, and our community includes people of all ages. We elect a very active Board of Directors from amongst our membership—housekeepers, carpenters, cooks all have the opportunity to be on the Board—to which our managing directors are accountable. We have a fairly egalitarian organizational structure, with many checks and balances for power and decision-making built in at every level. There are so many different levels and ways an employee can engage here, our highest level being the potential to join Membership and purchase a share of the business.
Living and working here, while very rewarding, is also challenging for some. Housing is rustic and most people share bathroom and cooking facilities. Without any visible central authorities (like government or law enforcement), we operate from a governing Handbook of Agreements, and a feedback-based model of governance, which can be confronting at times. The positive side is we gain a high degree of empowerment in this community; we are responsible for speaking up when we see something, and have the potential to affect big changes within the organizational structure. We take on a high level of responsibility and autonomy over our lives, one far beyond most workers in our positions. It is a unique experience, with uncommon challenges and big joys. Of course it is not for everyone, but for the right people, Breitenbush is a utopia unlike anywhere else.
“The thing that blows my mind about Breitenbush’s current human community is that we, this eclectic group of eccentric people, are able to function so well in so many critical areas. We operate an entire small town in the middle of the wilderness, including making our own electricity and heating our buildings with hot springs. We maintain enormously complex technical systems. We govern ourselves through an enthusiastic democratic process in which the power structure is circular, not pyramidal… At times we’re contentious, but we maintain high standards. It’s a happening scene.”
– From an article by Peter Moore, Business Director.
Well-Being - what we offer
Well-being is our greatest offering, through so many of the different amenities we have at Breitenbush. From the Credo above: our primary service is stewarding these hot springs and this holistic retreat center to support holistic and spiritual health. How? When you’re a guest at Breitenbush, everything is taken care of for you. The container we create here holds you in so many ways, from the gentle support of the hot spring water, to delicious homemade organic meals three times a day. All around you, the natural beauty of the Willamette National Forest provides a cradle of wilderness in this natural valley. The Breitenbush River cascading through our grounds brings life, moisture, and an icy freshness to the landscape. Our well-resourced staff are here to hold space for you and help facilitate your relaxation wherever we can, and our classes offer even deeper options for exploration and rejuvenation. Breitenbush takes care of everything you might have to worry about in your outside life. Here, you are offered a beautiful opportunity to drop in and really be with yourself on a deeper level. To us, this is the essence of well-being. The opportunity to tend to your own being in a safe container. We hope you get to experience the magic!
Sustainability - how we thrive
While at Breitenbush, you are entirely “off the grid.” The cooperative was founded on the belief that staying connected to our usage of resources is the best way to get conscious about our impact on the earth. Many decades later, this belief is still holding strong in our organization. The power of the river and heat from the hot springs, combined with simple living, allow us to thrive in this sanctuary without significant dependence on fossil fuels. Our small hydroelectric plant—powered by the Breitenbush River—produces about 40 kilowatts, the amount of electricity typically used in three urban homes. And yet it can support a community of up to 85 full time residents and up to 250 guests. By sharing kitchens, conducting electricity audits and avoiding power-hungry appliances like clothes dryers, the community is able to live within our energy limits.
In its early years (1977-1980), the Breitenbush community drilled several geothermal (literally “heat from the earth”) wells and developed the technology to use that natural hot water to heat our buildings. Today, over 100 buildings are kept cozy year-round, making Breitenbush the largest privately-owned geothermal facility in the Pacific Northwest. In 2005, the community completed the multi-year project to rebuild the fish diversion and flume for the hydroelectric plant. The facility can be viewed from the footbridge over the river. One of our building design principles is to use recycled/sustainable/renewable as much as we can. Much of our lumber comes from “volunteer” trees that offer their wood to us by falling or being blown down in the Breitenbush forest. Made from some of these volunteers, a Shinto Torii Gate (constructed by community alumni) soars over the head gates of our hydroelectric plant, welcoming the waters.
The History
Antiquity
The hot springs at Breitenbush were created by a combination of volcanism and glaciation thousands of years ago. Native Americans were the first humans to visit the springs. Although the Santiam band of the Kalapuya lived closest, numerous tribes in a radius of hundreds of miles visited the springs to hunt, fish, pick huckleberries, and use the springs for healing and ritual purification.
Land Acknowledgement
The land currently known as Breitenbush Hot Springs, located on the side of Mt. Jefferson has been a meeting place for multiple tribes for over 10,000 years. These include the Kalapuya and Molalla people from the west side of the Cascades Mountains, also Chinookan and Sahaptin peoples from the east side of the mountains. One name for these springs was Altat Satosh, and the mountain was called Pahtoo.
In ancestral times, the hot springs provided a rare opportunity to bathe in warm water, and were known for their healing qualities. In the springtime, members of these tribes would make their way to Breitenbush, staying through the summer and into the fall, and enjoy the waters. They met here for economic reasons as well—obsidian, beads, and many other commodities were traded. Feasting, rituals and ceremonies were all part of the meetings between these peoples in the ancestral environment.
As the current stewards of Breitenbush, it is our duty to protect and honor the history and people of these places.
Early Developments
The first Europeans to visit the springs were Hudson Bay fur trappers out of Fort Vancouver, probably in the 1840s. In 1873 John Minto led an expedition up the North Santiam Canyon in search of a pass through the Cascades to eastern Oregon. Minto recorded in his journal: “We penetrated up the valley through about seventeen miles of narrow gorge … to where Breightenbush makes in from the north; found John Breightenbush, a one-armed hunter, and nothing else there ahead of us, and named the beautiful affluent for him.” And so the springs were named.
Judge John B. Waldo, Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, visited the springs in the 1880s and wrote in his diary:
“I have read Thoreau’s Maine Woods through at this camp and am going over some of it a second time. He reads well far off in this boughy and aromatic forest of the Cascade Mountains where the foot of the lumberer he detested has never trod.”
In fact, Judge Waldo was so moved by his visits to the springs and environs that he wrote to President Grover Cleveland: “There are educational uses in mountains and the wilderness which might well justify a wise people in preserving and reserving them for such uses… where, in communion with untrammeled nature and the free air, the narrowing tendencies of an artificial and petty existence might be perceived and corrected, and the spirit enlarged and strengthened.” The result of their correspondence was the creation of the Cascade Forest Reserve, from which came all of the national forests of the Oregon Cascades.
The springs were homesteaded in 1904. President Theodore Roosevelt granted the homestead patent to one Claude Mansfield, over vociferous objections from the then incipient U.S. Forest Service. In 1927, Merle Bruckman purchased Breitenbush. Bruckman’s father had made a fortune by inventing the first machine to mass produce ice cream cones, allowing Merle to purchase the land and build the lodge and other buildings, thus realizing his dream of operating a wilderness health spa. Merle operated Breitenbush for 20 years, then retired and sold the property in the mid-1950s. The property changed hands a number of times until 1972, when after two devastating floods the business was closed, strung with barbed wire and posted with armed guards. An era had come to an end.
Rebirth
In 1977, Alex Beamer bought the land after looking at old spas throughout the Cascades. Breitenbush was his choice to begin the building of an intentional community to operate a retreat and conference center at the hot springs. Several years were spent restoring the old resort and getting it ready to host guest again. People who wished to put their energies into this project were invited to come and join in restoring the facilities. In 1981 the Breitenbush community started hosting guests who participated in a variety of workshops, celebrations or personal retreats.
The Detroit Ranger District of the Willamette National Forest became the largest timber cutting district in the 48 states at precisely the time Alex and friends began the Breitenbush experiment. All 10 historic trails were abandoned or paved over. The sounds and sights of industrial forestry chainsaws and ever growing scars on the hillsides impacted heavily the nascent community.
Resistance
Starting in 1979, the new residents of Breitenbush began questioning Forest Service plans for the area. By 1981, Dinah Ross had filed many timber sale appeals and recruited dozens to help her campaign for an end to logging and protection of the forests around the springs.
In 1984, the entire area of Devil’s Ridge was added to the Wilderness System by a vote of the U.S. House of Representatives, thanks to the tireless work of Dinah and friends. However, when the legislation reached the Senate, the area was removed from the protected list.
In 1985 the community purchased the land from Alex Beamer. Subsequently in 1989, a worker-owned cooperative corporation was formed through which the workers now own the business.
In 1986, the Reconstituted Man Timber Sale went forward in Mansfield Creek , the scars remain today in view of the Meadow Pools. Later that year, logging began on the North Roaring Devil Timber Sale, which saw cutting for the first time across the South Breitenbush River in the majestic forest at the base of Devil’s Ridge. The Community literally drew a line in the road and supported the blockade of the Cathedral Forest Action Group.
The Breitenbush Community and the Oregon Natural Resources Council (ONRC) filed suit. Before we won the precedent-setting Cumulative Effects lawsuit, the only bridge over the South Breitenbush was built, 1.2 miles of road was constructed, and 63 acres of ancient trees (some more than 700 years old) were clearcut.
Focus on the Positive
Community members and friends slowly reclaimed the trail network. Now, more than 20 miles of trail radiating out from the springs are available. It’s estimated that over 12,000 people hike the reclaimed trails each year, with the Breitenbush Gorge Trail and the Spotted Owl Trail featured in various hiking guides.
With the advent of the Clinton Forest Plan in 1993, most of the area above Cleator Bend is part of a 49,000 acre Late Successional Reserve (LSR). While the LSR doesn’t have the protection level of wilderness, no plans for future logging within it are on the table. As it had been for thousands of years, and continuing now with over 35+ years of the Breitenbush Community, our Mother Earth is the constant, tirelessly pouring forth her healing waters for all species to enjoy.
