Radium Hot Springs

British Columbia - Radium Hot Springs
By Michael Russell

Radium Hot Springs is at the gateway to the Kootenay National Park (KNP) which has long been an east-west travel route. It is believed that the area encompassed by the park, some 1406 sq. km., was traveled on a seasonal basis by First Nations. The Ktunaxa regularly crossed the Rockies via Whiteman Pass, Simpson Pass and Vermilion Pass to hunt buffalo on the plains.

The first non-native people in the area were trappers and fur traders with the first recorded visit by Sir George Simpson in 1841. Hard on Simpson's heels was James Sinclair who came over Whiteman Pass leading a cavalcade of Red River settlers en route to Walla Walla, Washington. In 1858 geologist James Hector led a branch of the Palliser expedition into the north end of the Kootenay area.

By the early 1900s local businessmen were lobbying for a road linking Windermere to Banff. Eventually the road was completed by the federal government in exchange for title to a strip of land on either side of the route. In 1920, this land was set aside as Kootenay National Park.

The best known built up area in the region is Radium Hot Springs which is just at the south entrance to the park through the narrow gorge of the Sinclair Canyon. Although it has a reputation for being perhaps the petunia and bighorn sheep capital of BC, Radium is most famous for which it was named, the healing, hot water springing from the earth and captured in a huge soaking pool.