Stehekin, Washington — Cars With No Road Out

Stehekin has cars.

It does not have a road connecting those cars to the rest of Washington.

Vehicles arrive by barge on Lake Chelan. Groceries, propane and building materials can come the same way. People arrive by boat, floatplane or trail.

The upper lake sits against the North Cascades in terrain that has resisted conventional road connections. Indigenous people traveled through this country for thousands of years; the Stehekin name is associated with passage through the mountains.

Prospectors, homesteaders, guides and innkeepers followed. Orchards appeared along the Stehekin River, including the historic Buckner orchard.

Even the town center had to move when the Lake Chelan dam raised water levels in the 1920s.

A small year-round population still works, teaches children, runs businesses and maintains ordinary lives inside unusual logistics.

Stehekin is not beyond civilization. Civilization arrives by boat.