Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia

The Village of Harrison Hot Springs is a small community at the southern end of Harrison Lake in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia. It is a member of the Fraser Valley Regional District; its immediate neighbour is the District of Kent and included in it, the town of Agassiz.

The Village of Harrison Hot Springs has been a small resort community since 1886, when the opening of the Canadian Pacific Railway brought the lakeside springs within a short carriage ride of the transcontinental mainline. In its first promotion as a resort it was known as St. Alice's Well, although it had been discovered decades earlier when a party of goldfield-bound travellers on Harrison Lake capsized into what they thought was their doom, only to discover the lake at that spot was not freezing, but warm.

Although the resort flourished in a low-key fashion for years after this discovery was exploited by hoteliers, the Village of Harrison Hot Springs was not incorporated until 1949. It currently has a population of approximately 1,573 people. The village is known for its namesake hot springs, which are a major attraction for tourists who come to stay at the village's spa-resort. Harrison Hot Springs is also known for an international sandcastle building competition that takes place there annually in September, and for the summertime Harrison Festival of the Arts.

The hot springs themselves were originally used and revered by the Sts'Ailes (Chehalis) First Nations people who live along the Harrison River nearby. There are two hot springs, the "Potash", with a temperature of 40°C, and the "Sulphur", with a temperature of 65°C. According to Harrison Hot Springs Resort, the waters average 1300 ppm of dissolved mineral solids, one of the highest concentrations of any mineral spring. This hot spring is one of several lining the valley of the Lillooet River and Harrison Lake, with two others on the lake at Twenty Mile Bay and at Port Douglas, at the head of the Bay. The northernmost of the Lillooet River hot springs is at Meager Creek, north of Whistler, with another well-known one to the east of Whistler at Skookumchuck Hot Springs, midway between Pemberton and Port Douglas. One feature of this chain of hot springs is that the Harrison Hot Springs vent is the most sulfuric, and there is consistently less sulfur content as one goes northwards, with the springs at Meager Creek having almost no scent at all.

In June 2006, Harrison Hot Springs was in the news due to the discovery of drug dealers using helicopters to smuggle drugs past the border and into the United States. [ [http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060629/drug_smuggling_066029/20060629/ CTV.ca | U.S., Canadian police bust drug smuggling ring] . June 19, 2006.]

Archival Photos

* [http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/cgi-bin/www2i/.visual/img_med/dir_70/a_09120.gifSt. Alice Hotel as seen from hot spring, 1912]
* [http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/cgi-bin/www2i/.visual/img_med/dir_72/b_03961.gifCloseup of St. Alice Hotel, c.1905]

References

ee also

*Harrison Mills, British Columbia

External links

* [http://www.harrisonhotsprings.ca Village of Harrison Hot Springs]
* [http://www.harrison.ca Harrison Hot Springs and surrounding area]
* [http://www.harrisand.org Harrison Sand Sculpture site]
* [http://www.fvrd.bc.ca/ Fraser Valley Regional District]
* [http://www.harrisonschool.net Harrison Hot Springs Elementary School]