A nice little jaunt from Seattle across the border to Canada and up through the Fraser Valley to Harrison Hot Springs. Feels a little bit like a throw back to the 1920s, but the pools are varied in temperature and relaxing, and there are plenty of lodging and food options.
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 Europeans had discovered it (not new to indigenous communities) decades earlier when a party of goldfield-bound travelers on Harrison Lake capsized into what they thought was their doom, only to discover the lake at that spot was not freezing, but warm.
Starting in November, over 35,000 eagles will pass through the lower Fraser Valley until February, with thousands of the birds accumulating on Harrison River daily to feast on spawning salmon. White Trumpeter Swans also winter in the valley.