The best hot springs in Canada for a winter soak

Snowflakes melt before they reach the water, steam drifts up into the pines, and you're sitting in a 39°C pool while it snows on your head. Almost all of Canada's natural hot springs are in British Columbia, Alberta's Rockies and the Yukon, and they range from tiled pools with a lifeguard and a café to a rock pool at the end of a logging road, or a chain of pools at the end of a rainforest boardwalk you can only reach by boat.

Two closures to plan around: Miette Hot Springs in Jasper is closed for the winter and reopens in May 2027, and Banff Upper Hot Springs closes for maintenance from October 13 to early November. Everything else below is open through the cold months.

The Parks Canada pools in the Rockies

Banff Upper Hot Springs is the classic: a big outdoor pool on the side of Sulphur Mountain, looking straight across the valley at Mount Rundle. It's open daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. (last entry 9:30), including Christmas Day and New Year's Day. A single entry is $19.75 for adults and $17.25 for youth and seniors, and a family ticket is $64.25. You can't book ahead; it's first come, first served, which is why timing matters more than anything. Go after 8 p.m. on a weeknight: the day-trippers from Calgary have gone home, the line at the door is gone, and the steam rising off the pool under the lights, with snow on the trees around it, is the best part of the whole place.

If you're making a weekend of it, sleep at the Fairmont Banff Springs, a few minutes' drive down the hill from the Upper Hot Springs. It's Banff's 1888 castle hotel, and it has its own adults-only spa built around an indoor mineral pool and three waterfall whirlpools, so you can soak twice in a day: the hot springs under the stars, then the spa pool the next morning before breakfast. Ask for a room on the Bow Valley side, which looks down the river to Mount Rundle, the same mountain you'll be staring at from the hot pool.

Stay at the Fairmont Banff SpringsKlookBanff's 1888 castle hotel, a few minutes' drive from the Upper Hot Springs, with an adults-only spa built around an indoor mineral pool and waterfall whirlpools.

Hot springs at night, mineral pool by morning

Ask for a Bow Valley room facing Mount Rundle.

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Radium Hot Springs in Kootenay National Park sits at the bottom of a red-rock canyon, about an hour and a half from Banff over the Vermilion Pass. It's open year-round; from October 13 to May, the hours are 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends. Adult entry is $19.75, the same as Banff, and there's a cooler swimming pool next to the hot one. No booking here either; you pay at the door. Both pools are inside national parks, so you need a park pass for the drive in as well as the pool ticket, and if you're doing both in one trip, one Parks Canada daily pass for the mountain parks covers both.

The Kootenay resort pools

The West Kootenays have three good hot springs within a couple of hours of each other, which makes an easy road-trip loop.

Halcyon Hot Springs, on the Upper Arrow Lake between Nakusp and the Galena Bay ferry, has pools on a terrace above the lake. A day or evening drop-in is $25 ($18 on Thursdays), and the last hour, from 9 to 10 p.m., is adults only. Overnight guests get the pools included.

Nakusp Hot Springs, which is community-owned, is a quieter, cheaper alternative in the forest just outside town.

Ainsworth Hot Springs, on Kootenay Lake north of Nelson, has the most unusual pool in Canada: a horseshoe-shaped cave where the hot water drips from the ceiling. It's now owned by the Ktunaxa Nation's Yaqan Nukiy band. Nakusp and Ainsworth both change their hours with the season, so look them up the day before.

Harrison Hot Springs

Harrison Hot Springs sits at the south end of Harrison Lake, about two hours east of Vancouver. Don't mix up the two pools. The five mineral pools at the Harrison Hot Springs Resort are for hotel guests and spa clients only; day visitors use the public mineral pool in the village, which is indoor and much plainer. Its hours depend on lifeguard staffing and have changed often, so call before you make the drive.

Lussier and Liard River, off the gravel

Lussier Hot Springs in Whiteswan Lake Provincial Park is a series of rock pools on the bank of the Lussier River, about 17.5 km up a gravel forest service road from Highway 93/95 just south of Canal Flats. There's no building and no lifeguard, just the pools and the river. In winter the road ices up, especially the canyon stretch between km 15 and 18, and so does the short trail down to the pools. A 4x4 and grippy boots make it a lot easier. There's no cell service.

Liard River Hot Springs sits at kilometre 765 of the Alaska Highway in far northern B.C. A boardwalk crosses a warm-water swamp to a natural pool surrounded by boreal forest, and the park stays open in winter. The pools are open from 7 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. In summer there's a small day-use fee ($5 an adult); the park's winter camping costs $16 a night. Most people stop here on the drive north to the Yukon.

Hot Springs Cove, by boat from Tofino

Hot Springs Cove in Maquinna Marine Provincial Park, north of Tofino, can only be reached by boat (about an hour and a half through Clayoquot Sound) or by floatplane (about 20 minutes). From the dock, a 2-km cedar boardwalk through old-growth rainforest leads to a chain of pools where the hot water runs down the rocks and meets the ocean. Most people go on a day tour from Tofino. Ask whether the price includes the BC Parks fee and the Ahousaht stewardship fee, because some operators collect them separately at the dock.

Winter sailings depend on the weather, and the Pacific can cancel a trip, so don't make the cove the only reason for the journey. Book a few nights of storm watching in Tofino and treat the cove as the bonus day: if the boats can't go, you're still watching the same storm from a window by the fire.

Eclipse Nordic, outside Whitehorse

Eclipse Nordic Hot Springs, at kilometre 10 of the Takhini Hot Springs Road outside Whitehorse, is the old Takhini Hot Springs rebuilt as a Nordic spa, with saunas and steam rooms alongside the pools. It's for adults 19 and over, and visits are about three hours long. Go on a clear night in the aurora season, from late August to April, and you may get the northern lights from the pool.

No hot springs nearby? Go Nordic

Ontario and Quebec don't have natural hot springs you can soak in, but they have something close: Nordic spas, where you rotate between hot pools, saunas and a cold plunge outside in the snow. If you've never done one, here's how the thermal circuit works.