SUPs, Sasquatch and seals

This was the vacation that kept on not happening because of Covid-19. We had to keep cancelling our family trip from Family Day, Spring Break and May long weekend so we were SO THRILLED to be able to finally go. With almost all of us having both does of the vaccine, we felt happy to resume some semblance of a normal family vacation. We usually vacation together at Cultus Lake but my mom found a beautiful chalet at Harrison Hot Springs and I think we may have found a new family favourite vacation spot.

 Things to love about Harrison Hot Springs. 

The Beach. Once you get here, you have everything you need for a great day outside. The lagoon is there for anyone who wants warmer water but we were concerned about the swarms of Canada geese (and goose poop) so we opted to spend our days at Harrison Lake just past the lagoon instead. We packed lunches but there's lots of shops and restaurants if you rather eat out. There was shady grass for my mom and plenty of sand and sun for the us and the kids. But be warned the the water in Harrison Lake is extremely cold, only the brave souls or adventurous 7 year olds would dare jump off the dock into the icy water.

Stoked on our SUPs. You can drop off all your gear right by the beach so it's not far to take the SUPs from the back of the truck into the water. There's also a rental shop right on the dock so we could try a double kayak and pedal boating as well. There's also a huge inflatable water park/ninja course that entertained us just by watching the people fly off the apparatus. We will probably do this when the kids are a bit older but even just watching is so fun. It's like a live show of WipeOut!

Try the Hiking Trails. We didn't do any serious hiking because it was too hot but there's lots of easy walking/hiking trails in the areas. We did the walk around Harrison Lagoon, Spirit Trail, Bridal Trail, Miami Bridges walk, and an unmarked trail that led to a severely overgrown trail that the kids were too scared to keep on trekking to find out if it leads anywhere. 

Sasquatch Hunt. The kids loved finding all Sasquatch icons everywhere. We even found the bench thatI sat on exactly TEN YEARS ago when I was pregnant with Nallie. The bench is still there with Sasquatch sitting there. 

Seals spotted. When the kids were busying building sandcastles, we took a longer paddle and both days we saw a seal! I had no idea seals could be in freshwater but we looked it up and apparently they it's true. Seals do live in Harrison Lake! The seal didn't pop up to make a cameo for a picture unfortunately though we all tried our best seal calls to lure him out again. 

Harrison Chalet. This was perhaps the best part of our vacation. The rental house was called Harrison Chalet and it was this gorgeous place with 5 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms - even the kid's bedroom had an ensuite bathroom. There was a beautiful patio with a table big enough for all of us to enjoy meals together. The living room was big enough for us to all sit around and play games all evening.

But perhaps the most spectacular part of this place as the backyard. Calling it a backyard doesn't even seem right, it was this massive acreage with manicured gardens, flowers and trail that led to a view point. It was so luxurious to have all this space to play badminton, spike ball and the kids to have epic pool noodle battles. 

With all those things - we are definitely hopeful to come back here again!