Touring British Columbia’s Hot Springs

Robert Smith takes us on a tour of British Columbia’s Hot Springs aboard his 1982 Laverda 1200 TS Mirage.

By Robert Smith
Published on February 3, 2021
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by Robert Smith
The author at Rogers Pass on the Trans-Canada Highway.

In 1811, explorer David Thompson of the Northwest Company set out to map the Columbia River from its source in the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean. No doubt, at the end of a hard day’s travel, he and his party would have welcomed soaking in an outdoor hot tub.

And while I have no evidence that Thompson actually visited any of the region’s hot springs, it seems pretty likely his party would have taken advantage of those they found. British Columbia’s interior is dotted with mineral springs heated by subterranean magma, and I plan to try a few.

Southern British Columbia shares much of its history and geography with the Pacific Northwest U.S. The Coast Range extends north into British Columbia, as do the Cascade Mountains, while the Rockies form the Province’s eastern border. Between the coast and the Cascades are lush rainforests. In the middle, the northern reaches of the Sonoran give British Columbia a true desert, while the Columbia River watershed drains the rain and snowmelt from the Rockies’ western slopes.

Early explorers traded with the indigenous peoples for beaver pelts, and the goal of David Thompson’s trip was to establish a fur trading post at the mouth of the Columbia River. This would also reinforce England’s claim to the region that is now Washington State. Sadly for Thompson, a party sponsored by John Jacob Astor beat him to the mouth, and established the town of Astoria. (The Oregon Treaty of 1846 eventually settled the Washington-British Columbia border at the 49th parallel.)

I’m riding my 1982 Laverda 1200 TS Mirage, essentially a bored out and detuned version of the famous Jota 1000. In the late 1970s, Laverda decided not to compete with the Japanese multis on sheer power, so their muscular 180-degree triple was repurposed as a sport tourer. To help smooth vibration and to meet noise restrictions, the Mirage used softer cams and lower compression; then to recover some of the lost grunt, capacity was boosted to 1,116cc. The Mirage only lasted two years, replaced in 1983 by the sophisticated RGS 1000 with its rubber mounted 120-degree engine.

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