Paddlewheeler Cruise

On the last day of our holiday, we took a paddlewheeler cruise on Harrison Lake. Harrison Lake is the largest lake in the Coast Mountains of BC at 250 square km in area--60 km long and 9 km wide at its widest point.



Harrison Lake has two large islands in the center of it; the largest being Long Island, 9.5 km long and 2.6 km wide, and Echo Island which is south of Long Island and 4 km long and 2.2 km wide.



We spent the entire day aboard this vessel: the MV Native. This is the view of Harrison Village as we looked back after leaving the dock as we headed to the Harrison River.

This is the point where the Harrison Lake meets the Harrison River. It is possible to travel from Harrison Lake, down the Harrison River to the Fraser River, and eventually the Pacific Ocean.

We watched a barge move its log boom.

We were in search of pictographs. We found them on this rock.

You really need to know where to look for the pictographs as they are faint and not easy to spot.

After locating the pictographs, we turned around and headed back to Harrison Lake. If you look through the opening in these trees towards Harrison Lake, you can see two islands that are faint in the center of this photo. These islands are Camile Island (smallest island on the right) and Marguerite Island (larger island to the left of Camile). These islands were named for Miss Margaret de Gusseme who managed the Harrison Hot Springs Resort from when it first opened in 1926 until her death in 1946 and her sister Camile who was the hotel's assistant manager. Margaret did a lot to promote the Resort worldwide. The Island to the left of Camile and Marguerite is Echo Island. Only the tip of Echo Island is visible in this picture.

These purple buildings are part of Elfinlau (aka Purple Palace). Elfinlau is a bed and breakfast on Echo Island in the middle of Harrison Lake that is only accessible by water. http://www.elfinlau.com/

The rock on the left side of this next picture is Echo Rock. As we sat in the bay here, the Captain let off his boat whistle and we heard an immediate and clear echo return to us. In the upper right hand corner of this picture you can see Owl rock.

This is a close up of Owl rock.

It was surprising how many homes and cottages are located on the shores of Harrison Lake--especially given that many of these homes are only accessible by water. These residences are located in Cascade Bay which is on the east side of Harrison Lake.

The air was smoky the day we cruised the lake. You can really see the smoke in this picture. The mountains are almost totally obliterated from view. The smoke is from the many forest fires that continue to burn in our province.

We had a great time cruising the lake. Our only regret was the amount of smoke that made it hard to see the distant mountains.