A Bald EAgle, Stewart BC and Hyder, AK

A Bald Eagle, Glacier, Stewart and Hyder Alaska

Our side trip takes us on route 37A, to Stewart Canada and Hyder, Alaska.  This is right at the tip of that huge area of inland passages the cruise ships use.  Why, I wonder, does the US own this prime strip of ocean off the Canada coast?  Someone later told me it was part of what Seward bought from the Russians. (Remember Seward’s Folly?) Another thing to look up later!

We weren’t on this road very long before John spotted a Bald Eagle.  I don’t know how he can do this and drive at the same time, but we stopped, and the Eagle was sitting high in a tall tree.  To me he was camouflaged against a backdrop of mountains and white snow patches, so it was an even greater wonder that John saw him.

This is another area of beautiful roadside snow capped mountains.  One highlight was Bear Glacier, where Nacho posed for a picture.  The top was covered with mist, but John got some beautiful shots, and the overcast sky seemed to make the contours of the glacier stand out, not to mention the incredible cerulean blue of the crevices.  Bear Glacier drops into Bear River, which follows the highway all the way to Stewart. But we didn’t see any bears1

Stewart has a population of 699.   It is considered to be a neat, well kept mining town.  I guess that’s because it’s compared to Hyder, which is really funky and almost looks like a western movie set.  The population of Hyder is 100, as you will note on the sign.

The town is not quite two city blocks long, and you have to cross the Canada-US border to get to it.  Someone told us later that this is where the Vietnam draft dodgers hungout.  My list of  things to “google” keeps growing! 

There is a trip out to Salmon Glacier, which everyone says is spectacular, but we choose not to do this drive, another gravel road.  There is also a well known bear feeding area here, but that won’t happen until the salmon run in mid July-September.

           Nacho had his picture taken at Bear Glacier.


          We stop at Dolly’s store, and she was sitting inside the doorway down a narrow hall about 20 feet.  She was wrapped in a blanket and engaged us in a pleasant conversation.  We bought some postcards from her, while she told us she’d been here 29 years, having come from Redding California, which she thought had gotten too civilized.   I wish we could have taken a picture of her, but I felt awkward asking. Her hands were terribly crippled with arthritis.  She probably has her picture taken a lot.  We heard from someone else that Dolly’s husband was Canadian miner,  and since the local mines were shut down, he had to go for work elsewhere.  The mines here were gold, silver and copper and haven’t been operational for a long time. 

We went to the Post Office in Hyder to mail the postcards, and when I mailed one to my sister in Nebraska, a man from the Post Office followed us out.  “I don’t mean to be nosy, and I wasn’t readin’ your mail or anythin’, “ he says,  “but I see your postcard is going to Nebraska and I was wonderin’ if you knew where Crawford was?”   It turns out he’s from Rhode Island and his brother retired from there as a Police Chief.  The brother retired at 45, but felt he was too young, so he took the same job in Nebraska.  “Everyone treats him like he’s regular people in Nebraska.  Not like they treat cops in Rhode Island.”   In the meantime, while John was waiting for me at the Post Office, someone billing himself as the Circuit Preacher came along and gave John a religious pamphlet. 

There is a border guard to get back into Canada.  Before we cross, John poses at the marker for the border and we look ant an old masonry building that was built in the late 1800’s.   We also look at the Portland Channel, which goes from Stewart to the ocean and was surveyed by Captain D.D. Guillard of the Army Corps of Engineers, who was also involved in the building of the Panama Canal. 

We backtracked up 37A and got back onto the Cassiar highway.  Almost immediately, we  spotted a mother bear with two cubs.  They looked like two year olds.  We also overtook our cyclists, who were within a short distance of their day’s destination at Bell 11 Lodge.  Good for them, and Marion said Andy was feeling better.  He didn’t look better, though. As we passed Bell 11, it looked like a pretty decent place.

Our stop tonight is at Kinaskan Provincial Park.  Just before we got there, the terrain changed dramatically from a lush, rain forest type of landscape to a northern forest of black spruce and rocks.  It seems to be a considerable dryer area.  The lake is beautiful and we are right at the edge.