Future of Harrison Hot Springs evacuation route up in the air, again

Unless you’re riding an ATV, driving a boat, or flying a helicopter, there’s only one road out of Harrison Hot Springs—and it doesn’t look like another will be built any time soon.

The idea of building a secondary evacuation route out of the small town has been around for decades, and was finally solidified in 2023, when both Harrison Hot Springs and the District of Kent decided to move forward with a route planned through Sasquatch Park.

But since then, nothing has happened. And although Kent Mayor Sylvia Pranger still wants to go through with the plan if the province gets on board, Harrison Mayor Fred Talen says the village needs to focus on making sure evacuations can be safe and effective with the road they already have.

“We work with the reality today,” he said. “Hot Springs Road is the way out, and that’s the reality.”

With more research required from the municipality before the province can approve the evacuation route, that lack of enthusiasm could keep the project stalled at the starting line.

Today, Highway 9 heads north from Highway 1 between Rosedale and Bridal Veil Falls. It veers briefly west through Agassiz and continues up to Harrison Hot Springs on the edge of Harrison Lake. It’s the only road in—or out—of town.

Rockwell Drive leads away from Harrison, following the lakeshore in the District of Kent towards Sasquatch Provincial Park and Hicks Lake. In summer, trees form a canopy over the road. A dense forest peppered with little lakes and populated largely by beavers and mountain goats lies beyond.

Rockwell Drive would play a key role in a long-suggested secondary evacuation route from Harrison Hot Springs. Officials have long wanted to extend the road an additional 21 km through the Sasquatch Provincial Park to connect to Lougheed Highway near Seabird Island.

The councils for both Kent and Harrison Hot Springs endorsed the park route two years ago.

To complete the evacuation route, a road would be constructed from the end of the Rockwell Drive and through the park for several kilometers. The route would follow an old railway grade, join up with an old forest service road, and eventually connect to Lougheed Highway. The route would be gated until it was needed in an emergency.

Upgrading the present hiking-trail-sized track to a road for regular cars would cost about $750,000, a 2020 report said. Harrison Hot Springs, the District of Kent, and Seabird Island First Nation asked the province for its approval to move ahead with the project in 2023.

The District of Kent is still pushing to see the road built, long-time mayor Sylvia Pranger told the Current.

“It’s still a priority for us,” she said, noting it was a matter of the safety of visitors to the district, as well as residents on Rockwell Drive.

“I know this should be the provincial responsibility, but I would never want to say I didn't fight or to get them safely out, should there be a reason.”

Harrison’s recently elected mayor, however, isn’t sold on the project.

The original plans for a new evacuation route happened before Talen was elected in 2024. Some uncertainty had been voiced on Harrison’s council in 2023, when former mayor Ed Wood had the helm. The concern at that time, though, seemed to resolve with a renewed commitment to push for the route.

Talen admits that two roads out of town would be better than one. But he said the village’s immediate focus should be on ensuring the village is prepared for an emergency with the equipment and materials—and roads—they already have.

“We have one evacuation route, that's Highway 9 and Hot Springs Road, and so our emergency planning and emergency preparedness works with that,” he said. “The real goal in our minds is to make sure the village can be both safely and efficiently evacuated if that's necessary.”

When it comes to the safety of a potential evacuation, the proposed road through Sasquatch Park holds some concerns for Talen. He emphasises that any second evacuation route would have to be safe for everyday people and the swarms of tourists the town hosts every summer.

“Obviously, if the evacuation route creates secondary or tertiary problems, that doesn't help,” he said. Talen said the proposed route includes sharp corners, steep grades, and a very narrow existing roadway. (The required construction outlined in the 2020 report would likely mitigate many of these concerns, but perhaps not all.)

In contrast, Talen said, Hot Springs Road is flat and surrounded by fields.

“It has some good features, in my mind, for an evacuation route.”

While Hot Springs Road remains the village’s primary evacuation route, a flood or fire that could close Hot Springs Road might leave the secondary route open and give residents another way to leave the area.

The safety of the potential road isn’t Talen’s only concern. Keeping the park, with its deep woods and tall trees, intact is also important to him.

“It would be unfortunate if the park was compromised because of [the road],” he said.

That impact on the pocket of nature that forms Sasquatch Park has been a concern since the evacuation route was originally pitched. The largest hurdle, the 2020 report noted, was always going to be gaining provincial approval to build a road through the park, even if that road was gated and used only in emergencies.

While Seabird Island, Harrison Hot Springs, and the District of Kent have asked the province to consider changing the park boundaries temporarily to allow the road construction, the province says a formal proposal is still required.

The steps the province required from the communities involved, however, did not seem to be made particularly clear.

“We were awfully close,” Pranger said. “We thought we were almost at the finish line, but it looks like there's now a bit of a hold up with the province.”

The province, however, said the hold up was not their responsibility to resolve.

BC Parks told The Current that the legislature would need that formal proposal from the communities before it could make a decision. The proposal would need to include, among other things, the results of public engagement and First Nations consultation, an environmental assessment, and details on who would manage and maintain the roads.

Conducting the research and gathering the required details rests in the hands of the municipalities involved, the province said. But without clear support from Harrison Hot Springs, the future of the route remains uncertain.