When a place has been on the map for decades, it’s easy to overlook. 

That’s my excuse anyway, for not having visited Harrison Hot Springs Resort, just an hour east of Vancouver, before now.

Ode to the Past

Pictures of celebrity guests from an earlier era line the walls here. Who wouldn’t play up the past when you can name-drop the likes of Clark Gable, Sidney Poitier, John Wayne and even the King and Queen of Siam?

Harrison Hot Springs Resort was the first resort of its kind in BC and possibly all of western Canada. The original hotel—the  St. Alice—even pre-dated that better known hotsprings-inspired resort, the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel, by a couple of years.

This resort isn’t in the grand chateau style as Banff Springs, which is too bad given its stunning location on Harrison Lake with mountains all around. Instead, the resort was built in stages and no two parts are alike.

But the hotel’s lack of architectural finesse doesn’t seem to matter because the hot mineral waters that seep out of the ground have always been the resort’s number one calling card. That’s still the case today.

The Hot Springs

I slip into the adult-only hot mineral pool and sigh deeply. I’ve just been kneaded like putty in the Healing Springs Spa and am as content as can be. Steam rises into the cool night air and shrouds a few other guests, giving each of us the illusion of having the pool to ourselves.

Harrison Hot Springs Resort offers five pools with temperatures ranging from 26 to 40 degrees C. Two are indoors and three outdoors, including a 4,000 square foot lap pool.

The Copper Room

In the resort’s formal dining room, The Copper Room, several older couples are jiving on the dance floor to the Jones Boys when we arrive.

“They love this room,” says Ian Maw, director of sales and marketing. “It’s the dance era kind of thing,” he explains, pointing to a photograph from the late 1950s, when Seagrams owned the resort and it was still legal to put liquor bottles on the table.

I’m beginning to feel I’ve missed the boat, but then I open the menu and find dishes that are as new as this place is old. There’s free-range chicken from the Fraser Valley, wild Pacific salmon and goat cheese from an award-winning local cheesemaker.

A History Lesson from Laurence

The next morning I’m gazing out at Harrison Lake when a white-haired waiter named Laurence arrives to serve me tea and tell me stories about years gone by.

Back in the 60s, long-distance swimmers would come here to practice before attempting the English Channel.  “They’d cover themselves in black grease and swim out to that island,” he explains, pointing out the window.

Harrison Lake is big (70 km long, to be exact), deep and very cold. This is one bit of history I don’t mind having missed.

But one thing I won’t miss this time? Another trip to the hot mineral pools once breakfast is over.