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The Hot Springs Cove Story

Book Cover

Cover of the New Book (Photo from the Michael Kaehn collection.)

Michael Kaehn has produced a combination ’insiders story‘ and guidebook to the fabled Hot Springs Cove on Vancouver Island’s West Coast. The site is a little out of the way but many people who have never been there have heard about it and its founder Ivan Clarke (Kaehn’s grandfather). The site is protected now as Maquinna Marine Provincial Park, a place of special significance and historical importance.

The book has been carefully researched from family archives and memories and the whole story is generously shared with the reading public. Just published in 2019 by Harbour Publishing it is easy and enjoyable to read – each chapter revealing the detail of life on the early remote west coast like few other sources. Life was not easy and it was definitely different from that of someone living in more populated areas. Dependent on the sea for supplies and customers its definitely a marine history story.

I particularly am fascinated by the story because in the 1930s my grandfather (a tug boater) broke his leg and recuperated with daily plunges in the hot pool. But the book tells a broader story of settlement, surviving the depression, wartime service, transition into modern times and the establishment of the marine park. You may never visit but this is the book to do some serious armchair exploring - a great summer book.

It available directly from the publishers or through better bookstores in your community. I highly recommend it.


Nauticapedia

Site News: January 14, 2025

The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 94,957 vessel histories (with 16,337 images and 13,935 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters).

The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,599 entries (with 3998 images).

My thanks to Ray Warren who is beginning a long process of filling gaps in the photo record of the vessel histories in the vessel database. Ray has been documenting the ships of Vancouver Harbour for more than 60 years.

Thanks to contributor Mike Rydqvist McCammon for the hundreds of photos he continues to contribute to illustrate British Columbia’s floating heritage.

My very special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.

Thanks to John Spivey who is beginning his 4th year of fact checking all of the entries in the vessel database.

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