Today was the best day of our trip, without question.
As Marlipops so eloquently put it, “ If you only have three days, and want the best scenery, the best town and the best wildlife, come here”
We started off with a moose. But, it was the wrong type of moose. This was a house moose, of the rodent variety. We had overnighted in the middle of nowhere and woke up to the patter of tiny feet. Actually it was the sight of the little bugger scampering across the floor that gave us our first clue. The second clue was moose crap in my shoes.
More to this later.
On the road by 8, we encountered not one, not two, but three bears in the road. Where was Goldilocks? The first was an indistinct blob from afar, and as we got closer, all we could see were a pair of ears and a snout, which disappeared into the undergrowth. The second was a big grizzly we came across suddenly as we rounded a bend in the road. He was ambling gently across, but ran away when he saw us. The third was a black bear which darted across in front of us. In all three sightings we did not have much chance to get a good picture, and we thought that is was OK, coz we had lots of other pix, and the memories of three bears in one day will be with us forever.
150 miles down the Cassiar Highway, which was freshly paved and a pleasure to drive on, compared to the day before, we turned on to the Stewart – Hyder access road……..and encountered the most gobsmacking scenery imaginable. There were mountains so close around we felt we could touch them, lots with avalanche paths, where there are no trees, lots of beautiful lakes, waterfalls galore, and several magnificent hanging glaciers. These literally hang off the mountains, gradually melting, forming roaring streams and rivers. The road meandered through a narrow canyon/gorge, with the river rushing and boiling right alongside. We were so close to the river we could smell the unique “glacier melt” odor from it.
And then into Stewart, and the Bear River RV resort. This place had been recommended to us by a couple of fellow travelers we had met a few weeks ago in Kenai, and with whom we had kept in touch via e mail. They were going to be here for another day, so we were hoping to meet up with them.
We parked the coach, hooked up all the essentials, and went into the town of Stewart. This tiny town is right on the edge of Canada, at the top of The Portland Canal, the fourth largest fjord in North America, and 2 miles away is the tinyer town of Hyder, which is in Alaska. There is no customs post going into Hyder, but there is one coming back into Stewart. Both towns are tidy and rely on logging and tourism for business. Hyder has a post office, but no bank. Stewart the opposite.
We went into the hardware store and stocked up on moose traps!
The streets of Hyder are gravel, no paving anywhere. The best thing is the wildlife.
We had been told, but were skeptical that the best place in the world to watch bears fishing and eating salmon was in Hyder. Not the Kodiak bears, or Denali, but Hyder, population 80. ( that’s people, not bears!)
Well, check out the pix.
We stood on the observation boardwalk overlooking Fish Creek for over six hours. We could not get away.
We met up with our friends Pauline and Grayson, and chatted for a while, and then the first bear arrived. It was a female immature grizzly, and proceeded to chase and finally catch a fish. Soon, a mature black bear showed up, ran off the grizzly, and went about his business for about a hour. Then, Marlipops noticed some movement in the bushes above the road opposite, and there was the grizzly, which had been run off from the creek earlier, busy eating berries.
Next, the black bear wandered off, and another, bigger grizzly appeared, and entertained us for ages. We were getting photo shock by this time, and had stopped taking pix, just happily watching the bears antics. I was just looking round, to the beautiful lake behind us, and right on the path, not 10 feet away, was a black bear, strolling along, totally ignoring everyone. He disappeared into the bushes after a while, and then, not long after, there was a female black bear, with two small cubs, crossing the creek, on to the road, and stopping all the traffic.
Marlipops saw a beaver, which was busy doing nothing on a log.
While I was busy talking, Marlipops went looking for more bears, and saw a black bear cub, supposebly two or three years old, sitting in a tree, making noises.
We eventually left, although the big grizzly was still eating big salmon, and the seagulls which had been there all day, were too stuffed to fly.
All the while, the poor old salmon, on their last legs, were still trying to spawn, before they died or got eaten!
On the way back, we went past a place called Moose Pond, although there are no moose there, and saw another beaver swimming along.
We had a lovely dinner with our friends, at the only restaurant still open at nine o’clock!
Wildlife watch today was out of this world, and the great thing is, we get to go back tomorrow.
