Halcyon Hotsprings are located about 36 km north of Nakusp on Highway 23. A rough gravel road leads up from the highway and directly to the 'rustic' hot pools. A modern resort is below the highway. See Woodsworth (1997) and www.halcyon-hotsprings.com for details.
The Halcyon hot springs are comprised of several springs with two main soaking pools present. The site is currently minimally developed. The hottest spring is 51 degrees centigrade, produces 5 litres per second with 788 parts per million dissolved solids and a pH of 7.3. The water has a moderate sulphur smell and a tangy, mineral tase. Sulphate and sodium are the main constituents with high fluoride as well. Lithium is reported, by anecdote only.
The springs are underlain by biotite schist and paragneiss of the upper Mississippian to Pennsylvanian or Permian Milford Group as well as amphibolite of the Permo-Triassic Kaslo Group. These packages have been intruded in the east by the lower Jurassic Kuskanax batholith that comprises leuco-quartz monzonite.
The springs are part of the Upper Arrow Lakes area hot springs. The hot spring fluids appear to be driven by differential hydraulic pressure and heated by radiogenic heat generation.
The area below Hwy 23 and the current springs was developed as a recreational resort/sanitorium in 1888 by a Captain Sanderson and enlarged in 1890. Spring water was piped to the buildings and reheated in a boiler. The site was active until the advent of World War I with road and steamboat access. The business recovered in 1924 when it was purchased by the White Cross Society and thrived as a world famous healing spa until 1955 when a fire destroyed the main hotel. The area of the original sanitorium development is largely flooded by upper Arrow Lake after the dams were emplaced in 1969. Of the primary original buildings, only the chapel with it's graveyard remains. There now exists a modern resort on the banks of Arrow Lake, the Halcyon Hot Springs Resort, on the remaining part of the original site. The springs themselves are above the highway, are on private land and have nominal, "rustic" development.
