Hyder, Alaska to Houston, BC

FRESH! The mist, the air, the feeling of being first to arrive. It’s early morning at Salmon Glacier. The viewpoint is from above the ice sheet. We look out and down at the five visible miles of 1000 foot thick ice. We can “see” the flow of this icy river. In the stillness we can hear faint creaks as the ice grinds against moraine. It’s a meditative place, so we hang around.

The twenty miles of dirt road that gets us here was built by a mining company. It’s utilitarian, not glamorous, but the surroundings are. In two miles we count 17 waterfalls. They are everywhere, draining the upper reaches. Somebody left the faucet running. We are at the snow line and the water is sculpting what remains. We’ve driven into the clouds and then above them and right back into British Columbia. The banks of forget-me-nots don’t seem to care they’re on the wrong side of the border.

We continue beyond the glacier just to experience more of this road, but not too far, it ends in 6 miles. We do a little jade mining of our own when we see some greenish rocks. We load a few into the truck for further investigation back in Spokane.

Keith Scott, the self-proclaimed, Bear Man is camped near Salmon Glacier. He has a one-man tent plus his car and he lives here all summer, selling DVDs of bears to tourists. We buy one, just to honor his tenacity and gentle way. Later, we learn while talking to a couple of Hyder locals that he drives from New Brunswick every year and has been coming for 28 years. They tell us he played professional basketball in Canada and does nature talks at schools.

Ponder the choices we make to fashion our lives.

We mail a post card at the Hyder post office, zip code 99923. The stated pick up times are twice weekly. No hurry.

We stop in Stewart to walk on the ¼ mile boardwalk out into the estuary for a grand view of Portland Canal. The map shows Misty Fjords to the west, and the Pacific Ocean straight ahead. Yellow cinquefoil is poking waxy heads through the graying slats, making an eye-catching contrast.

 The Stewart museum has displays on the five movies filmed in this area. Bear Island (1978), The Thing (1981), Ice Man (1982), Leaving Normal (1991), and Insomnia (2002). We have to be satisfied with what we learn at the Visitor’s Centre because today, the museum, (and just about everything else) has a hand lettered sign on the door saying “closed for graduation”. Yes, there are lots of cars in the school parking lot and the community is honoring their young people. Graduation trumps museum, no contest.

We head back on the Stewart-Hyder access road, glad we came. Wall to wall waterfalls thread their way down the canyon walls, following the path of least resistance in free fall.

We do a Bear Glacier redux for lunch and then we’re back on the Cassiar Highway.

There is the one lane wood plank bridge 130 feet over the Ness River, a view of four of the Seven Sisters, the graying stand of authentic totem poles in Gitwangak, and the ginger-red splashes of Indian paintbrush and then we are off the Cassiar. The sights become less natural and more sophisticated, like the world’s largest fly fishing rod, (60 feet long with a 21 inch fluorescent fly), in Houston, BC.
☺

Wildlife count: 2 eagles, marmots, 2 black bears

Airstreams: 1

Miles: 299

Gratitudes: PKB: special people special places JMB: the Salmon Glacier Road

Gin Score:

Authentic Totems

Salmon Glacier