Harrison Hot Springs, BC . About an hour's drive east of Vancouver ...
Day trip to Harrison Hot Springs. Located just east of Chilliwack BC, Harrison has beautiful beaches, stunning scenery and actual hot springs for swimming and relaxing.
If you are looking for BC hot springs then check out the healing hot mineral waters of Harrison Hot Springs, revered as the “healing place” by the local Sts’ailes First Nations for thousands of years before they were found by Europeans in the 1800’s.
Settlers are said to have ‘discovered’ the hot springs in 1858 while enroute to the gold fields. Their boat capsized, and expecting to meet their doom in the frigid waters, they instead discovered that the lake at that spot was not freezing but rather warm. The local Sts’ailes First Nations called the Hot Springs Kwals, meaning boiling water. The hot springs were revered as a “healing place” by natives of the Coast Salish people, who traveled by canoe to benefit from their waters.
It was later called St. Alice’s Well after one of the daughters of British Columbia’s first governor. Eventually, the name changed to Harrison Hot Springs, after Benjamin Harrison, a deputy governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company from 1835 to 1839. The St. Alice Hotel and Bath House were built soon after the railroad reached Harrison Mills in 1885 and Harrison Hot Springs has been a resort destination ever since.
The two BC hot springs that exist in the area are Potash and Sulphur which are 40 degrees C (104 degrees F) and 62 degrees C (145 degrees F) respectively. The water is pumped from one of the springs and cooled to provide an indoor public mineral hot springs pool that visitors can enjoy at 38 degrees C (100 degrees F). Guests staying at the Harrison Hot Springs Resort may also access the resort indoor and outdoor pools which are served from the BC hot springs source.
Harrison Hot Springs on Google Maps
