British Columbia has no shortage of geothermal water, but Radium Hot Springs and Liard River Hot Springs offer two very different ways to experience it.
Radium is a developed Parks Canada hot-springs facility in Kootenay National Park, with a large hot pool, a cooler swimming pool, change facilities and strong accessibility. Liard is a natural geothermal system in northern British Columbia, where visitors follow a boardwalk through boreal forest and warm-water wetland to soak in the Alpha Pool.
Both use naturally heated geothermal water. Both are public bathing destinations. But the experience, setting, temperature and style of travel are very different.
Liard River Hot Springs
Liard River Hot Springs is a natural geothermal spring system in northern British Columbia, set beside the Alaska Highway within Liard River Hot Springs Park. The springs are unusual not only because visitors can soak in naturally heated water, but because the geothermal outflow feeds an intricate warm-water wetland surrounded by boreal forest.
BC Parks describes Liard River Hot Springs as the second-largest hot spring in Canada and identifies the public bathing area as the Alpha Pool, where water temperatures range from approximately 42°C to 52°C / 108°F to 126°F.
Hot Springs Cove is one of British Columbia’s most distinctive natural hot-spring trips. Instead of driving to a roadside pool, visitors travel through Clayoquot Sound by boat or float plane, walk a 2 km boardwalk through coastal rainforest, and reach a series of natural geothermal pools beside the Pacific Ocean.
The destination is inside Nism̓aakqin Park on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The hot springs are known in ʕaḥuusʔatḥ culture as mux̣ʷšiƛa, meaning “steaming from rock”. This is a genuine natural hot spring rather than a commercial thermal pool, but its remote marine setting means planning matters. Tides, ocean swells, weather, transport arrangements, slippery boardwalk conditions, and park rules can all affect a visit.
For the full destination page, see Hot Springs Cove.
Radium Hot Springs
Radium Hot Springs is a natural mineral hot spring and developed bathing facility inside Kootenay National Park in British Columbia’s Canadian Rockies. Unlike a primitive wild spring, Radium combines naturally heated mineral water with a managed Parks Canada pool complex. Visitors soak in a large outdoor hot pool maintained at approximately 37°C to 40°C, with a separate cooler swimming pool available when operating conditions allow.
The setting beneath the steep walls of Sinclair Canyon gives Radium a strong mountain character while still offering changing rooms, lifeguards, lockers and accessible pool entry.
Hot Springs Cove
Hot Springs Cove is the familiar travel name for a natural geothermal soaking destination in Nism̓aakqin Park in Clayoquot Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. BC Parks identifies the springs by their ʕaḥuusʔatḥ (Ahousaht) name, mux̣ʷšiƛa (mahkw-shith-ah), meaning “steaming from rock”. The park itself was renamed from Maquinna Marine Park to Nism̓aakqin Park in 2025.
The springs are unusual because hot mineral water cascades through a rocky coastal setting into a series of natural pools that become progressively cooler as the geothermal water mixes with colder ocean water.