Northern Star
Some places are blissfully far enough away to keep the masses away, although from May to September hundreds of people per day pass through Liard Hotsprings, 495 miles up the Alaska Highway.
For some, this is a stopover, a resting spot en route to Alaska or the Yukon from southern BC and elsewhere. For me, it’s a destination unto itself worthy of a road trip from L.A. or Toronto. I could (and have) soaked for days in the 45-degree mineral waters of Alpha pool getting warm to the bone after a long cold ride up the remote Alaska Highway.
Liard River Hotsprings are the second largest in Canada after Banff; but unlike Banff, Liard has been left untouched. A wooden boardwalk, first built in 1942 by the American Army during construction of the Alaska Highway, meanders its way to the springs through a lush spruce marsh. In 1957 the Liard River Hotsprings Provincial Park was created to protect this natural setting rich in wildlife like grizzly and wood buffalo and alive with unique boreal forest plants.
There’s a beautiful campground at the entrance to the boardwalk, and a lodge with a decent restaurant across the highway. Other than that, there’s nothing except beautiful northern BC wilderness until Williams Lake to the North and Muncho Lake to the south.
If you’re there in summer, there’s nothing better than a midnight sunset soak; if you’re there in September, there’s nothing better than a 2am soak under the northern lights; but I hear from the locals that winter is the most magnificent time of all to be there. The pristine, snowed-in silence, they say, is phenomenal.
