Stewart, BC and Hyder, AK entry for 31 July and 1 AugustAug 4, 2011
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Viewing deck at Salmon Creek
Black bear on Salmon Creek
Black bear
| On Sunday we left Dease Lake and proceeded to Stewart, BC. Stewart, and their sister "city" Hyder, Alaska sit right across the border from each other about 40 miles west of the Cassiar highway. Their claim to fame, aside from some mining and fishing, is the bear viewing on Salmon Creek outside of Hyder. The park service has built a viewing platform - a long wooden deck that will hold a couple hundred people - above Salmon Creek where the bears come when the pink and chum salmon are running. When we got there the chum run was just getting started. We camped in a campground in Stewart so we didn't have to take the motorhome back and forth across the border and deal with customs each time. It was much simpler to take the Jeep across, since it contained nothing of interest to customs. There was no US customs at the border crossing, but Canadian customs has a presence there and checked us each time we crossed in the Jeep. Neither Stewart nor Hyder amount to much. Stewart was a bit bigger and had paved streets. Hyder had a potholed, dirt main street and a couple like side streets. They both had a couple of pubs/liquor stores, a few gift shops, a visitor center (although we never saw Hyder's open), a couple of restaurants and a general store. Most of both towns was bordering on derelict. The viewing platform at the creek was the most substantial structure I saw on the Alaska side of the border. Hyder did have a unique restaurant, though, called "The Bus". It was an old school bus painted blue with a "little mermaid" style scene painted on it's side. It sat in front of a building that served as an inside dining room. The bus itself was the kitchen for the restaurant. You placed your order at the door of the bus and eventually they'd bring your food to you either in the dining room or at outside booths under a canopy along the front of the bus. The booth seats were school bus seats. They served mainly seafood that the proprietress claimed was caught daily by her husband. I had seafood chowder that was some of the best I've had (and I had very good seafood chowder on several occasions in Alaska). I tried to get her recipe, but she wouldn't give it up. I also had battered halibut, shrimp, and fries. It was all very good. Mary Jo even ate the halibut. But I digress. The main reason for the detour to Hyder was the bears. We went over on Sunday evening and didn't see anything except a beaver in the pond behind the platform. On Monday we visited the platform 3 times by mid afternoon. In the morning we did see a black bear trying to catch salmon. I think it was a vegetarian bear ("vegetarian" is the Indian word for "lousy hunter"). We traveled 22 miles up the road beyond Hyder (the bear platform was at about mile 6) to see the Salmon Glacier. When we first got up there the fog (clouds) was so thick that you couldn't see anything. We kept on to the top of the pass, however, and things improved. By the time we came back down, you could get some pictures of the glacier from along the road. We returned to the campground and decided to leave Tuesday morning. We went back to the platform for one last ditch effort to see a grizzly feeding in the creek. When we got there, there was a big grizzly in the creek. We watched him fish for about an hour or so (3 fish for him) until he was full and meandered down the creek. We got quite a few pictures and several minutes of video of his antics. The trip was a success. |
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