needing a little trip out of smithers we did a random road trip (just like old times!) and ended up in stewart-hyder...stewart, bc is a tiny town of about 500 pop....hyder, alaska (pop. 100) is right beside it, with a small border crossing...both towns are on the portland canal, the most northernly ice-free port...
the road to stewart...we both agreed it has made our top 5 drives in canada list (and we've had some pretty nice drives!)
the stewart-cassiar highway to alaska starts at the junction in kitwanga (about halfway between smithers and terrace)...once you get to meziadin junction, you can go left to stewart-hyder and the end of the road, or you can go right to continue to alaska's major cities.
play break on the road to stewart
we brought all the camping gear with the full intention of camping in stewart for the night but the rain, although made for misty cloud pics like this, really put a damper on our camping spirit.
we made the decision to stay in this quirky little hotel...
the owner is an architect who bought a few of the old buildings in stewart and converted them in to an eccentric inn riddled with antiques
very cool place, for sure...except for the fact that the toaster museum (yes, a museum dedicated to antique toasters) was closed...
we walked around in the unrelenting rain to check out the town...
the (closed) toaster museum beside the inn, main street, stewart
there is a long boardwalk off the main street of stewart that leads into this estuary, just beside the canal
portland canal
about 5 miles from the border at hyder is fish creek...full of salmon, it's a tourist attraction with a boardwalk built for viewing grizzlies feasting on all the fish...
grizzly claws!
and paws!
waiting for grizzlies at fish creek...in the rain...
we were all soaked and so decided that our decision to stay indoors for the night was the best decision ever.
we didn't even want to go out to eat...but we did want tasty coastal fish...lucky for us, we came upon Dash Mobile Kitchen...the chef is Shawn Ackerman, who used to be an executive chef at a few restos in Whistler and Pemberton...
he left the city life to move north...his fiancee is american so part of their requirements for a northern community was a border town...they found what they were looking for in stewart-hyder, and now he cooks wonderful food out of a bus...
locally caught rockfish with cherry butter and garden veggies, a goat cheese brulee salad and a fresh baked loaf of bread (he bakes them in the bus!)...
enjoyed in bed, with some beer and jon stewart on the tele
the morning started off somewhat greyish but the rain had let up...we decided to go to the end of the road...
hyder is essentially a ghost town...the only way to go via road is to BC...the road past hyder only goes into tongass national park...to the glacier...and then ends at a mine.
the crystal clear fish creek without so much rain
remnants of an old mine
jon and i in old tyme colour
our first look at salmon glacier...completely covered in cloud...bummer after taking 1.5 hrs to ascend 40 miles because of the road condition (temperature went from 13 degrees to 4 degrees!)...
the bear man told us to keep going to the end of the road to see the blue ice and look for grizzlies...so we did.
and saw this.
and jon found this.
gross tailing pond from mine
man made river to divert the water flow for mine function
the end of the road...there's a functioning mine hidden down there...helicopters are used to transport containers out of here...
by the time we got back to the glacier, the clouds had lifted...
salmon glacier is the 5th largest in the world, 4th largest in north america
but still half the size it once was...
checked out the "town" of hyder before we left for home...
the building to the right was a church
and although we didn't manage to spot any grizzlies, we saw a ton of black bears on the road, like this one walking down the street in hyder, only about 50 feet in front of us (!!)
the sun was shining for the ride home...here's jon working his camera magic
the smaller bear glacier on the road home (which we could now see without all the rain and low lying clouds)
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