Carcross, Cassiar Highway, Stewart, Hyder (AK)
(posted from Safeway, Smithers, British Columbia)

(This post covers 19-21 August, 2008)
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Thursday, 21 August-

We camped only a few miles outside of Stewart, BC last night and this morning drove in on this foggy day for a look. But the town wasn’t awake yet. It was only 0730. The town of Hyder, Alaska is only a few miles further so we drove on. Hyder too was sleeping but four miles outside of Hyder is the Tongass National Forest and the Fish Creek bear viewing area. Fish Creek is reportedly one of the top areas in Alaska for viewing bears when the salmon are running.
After passing through the sleeping towns, it was a surprise to us to have trouble finding parking at Fish Creek. ‘Trouble’ may be an exaggeration but we did have to park at the far end of the second parking lot and there were only four or five more spots available. I’d guess there were 30 other vehicles there.
Fish Creek Recreation Area is basically a boardwalk running along and about 15 feet above the creek. It’s a National Forest fee area but the Multi-Agency Annual Pass I bought at Denali covered our $10 admission.
The boardwalk was bristling with long-lensed cameras on tripods but it was immediately obvious there was no bear action…the cameras weren’t being used. We walked the length of the boardwalk and watched the chum salmon spawning. On the other side of the little creek we could see a few salmon carcasses. After reading the signs and watching an eagle for a while we walked back to the van and dressed in warmer clothes and took another slow tour of the boardwalk but again, no bears. We decided to go on to Salmon Glacier and then try the bear viewing area again later today.
The dirt road to the bear-viewing platform continues for about 23 miles to a glacier and then on to an abandoned gold mine. The speed limit is only 20 miles per hour but that was plenty. The road was pot-holed in the level sections but then started climbing the mountain. It was cut into the side of the mountain and of course there’s no guard rail so 20 mph seemed fast—particularly as we approached blind corners.
As we climbed the fog thickened and it seemed we wouldn’t see anything today. But as we turned a corner we saw a spectacular sight— a giant shaft of sunlight with clear sky behind it was lighting up Salmon Glacier. It’s a massive river of blue-ice and white snow, heavily crevassed. At the toe of the glacier, a river of glacier-melt roars out into ponds with blue icebergs.
As we continued climbing in first gear along the narrow road the view just kept getting better and better until finally we hit the summit. There we parked at a five-car pullout with restrooms and picnic tables. The ice surface now lies hundreds of feet below this spot. But you can also see at least another 1000 feet up above as your eyes follow the frozen river of ice up from the lower section to the mountain top—an incredible spectacle.
After the summit view point we drove another few miles to an abandoned mine looking for a sow grizzly and two cubs reported to be in this area but with no luck.
We then made a slow descent, careful to stop several times to allow the brakes to cool—this wouldn’t be a good place to have the brakes fade.
We took another walk through the bear-viewing area and this time did see a small black bear in the creekside bushes but no grizzlies.
During our drive back to Salmon Glacier I had noticed that the van was again making a metal-on-metal sound but this time it was more rhythmic. The sound would only start once I’d start rolling and would sometimes disappear completely but then come back later.
We crossed back through Canadian customs and after I explained the problem I had trying to extend my firearms declaration form deadline, she merely stamped the existing form and told me it was now good for an additional 60 days. Good deal! She avoided starting a new form so I didn’t have to pay the $25 forms-processing fee I thought I’d have to pay.
Once back in Stewart we stopped at a garage to see if they could handle my universal joint problem. They were tied up but referred me to ‘Bill’s Tires’ right down the street. I told Bill I suspected a universal joint problem and had even gone so far as to buy a spare universal joint in Haines since I knew I’d be hundreds of miles from the nearest parts-house for days. Bill had me run the van up on ramps and checked the universal joints and pronounced the front one bad. He proceeded to remove the drive shaft and had a heck of a time with the over-tightened bolts but finally prevailed. As I handed him the spare u-joint I asked if he thought it a good idea to go ahead and replace both of them and he agreed. The first garage I had visited also had a good stock of parts on hand so I walked over there and bought another u-joint while Bill replaced the bad one. When he took the second one apart we saw it was indeed a good idea—that one had imprints of the bearing needles on the bearing surfaces so it would also have become a problem before long.
Bill finished the job in about an hour and a half and charged me $95 labor. I had $50 in the two u-joints. I was VERY happy to get that resolved that inexpensively. Given the alternative of a breakdown somewhere in the wilds of British Columbia, likely a couple of hundred kilometers of towing at $40 hook-up plus $2.50 a kilometer towing (rates I saw posted in a garage in Haines Junction) AND the repair bill, this was a bargain.
While paying the bill I asked Bill for a recommendation for supper. He recommended ‘The Seafood Bus’ in Hyder. We followed his directions and had a wonderful halibut-and-chips meal in a very unique setting. To order, you open the school bus door and lean in. Behind the driver’s seat stands Diana, working over a hot stove and deep-fryer. She takes your order and puts it in line with the others she has to do, one or two at a time. That means a wait of about 45 minutes for supper but it was great and we had a good time talking with local resident Donna Wood. Donna is at least 75, lives in Idaho part of the time and Hyder for the summer. She gave us tips on visiting Idaho and invited us to come visit her there.
After supper we decided to leave Hyder and Stewart tonight rather than tomorrow so the fog doesn’t cover the spectacular view as we drive out the 36 miles to the main road. That turned out to be a great idea. We not only had a great view tonight, we saw seven black bears at seven different locations in an hour of driving. I’ve never seen anything like it.
We picked a freebie camping spot out of the camping book as our goal and tried two other possibilities but struck out on both of them. They were lakes that BC has established as recreation areas so we thought we might park there for the night. But once at the turnoff we found the lakes were too far back in—more than six miles. But we did luck out and find the freebie camping spot empty at Bonus Lake and pulled in there about 2100 for the night. What a great day!

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Wednesday, 20 August-

Another travel day today. We continued south on the Cassiar Highway all day, bound for Stewart, BC—375 miles away. The road was only put through in the Seventies and there are still long stretches of gravel. The northernmost section has very few buildings of any kind—you go for miles and miles through boreal wilderness, mile after mile of white spruce and aspen. The more southern sections have a few more buildings—a cabin here, a roadhouse there-- but you can still count all the buildings you pass in an hour on one hand and have counting fingers left over—generally four of them. Gas stops are as much as 100 miles apart and are very small operations which may not have gas. We had seen such a situation yesterday in Carcross. The only gas station in the village was out of gas. Its delivery was due that day but hadn’t made it yet as of lunch time when we were there.
One notable stopping place along our route today was Jade City. It proclaims, “We mine it, we design it”—and it has more jade than you’ve ever seen in one place before. Even the bathroom door handles are made of jade. They pull in the passing traffic to/from the Alaska Highway by offering free camping and free coffee. We were amazed how many people showed up while we were there. The road had seemed empty but in our twenty-minute stop at least a dozen RVs pulled in. There was even a line at the register.
We stopped in Dease Lake to top off the gas tank at lunch time and then climbed through Gnats Pass and the scenery just kept getting better. The streams are clear and rushing, the pines are tall, the mountains have snow up high. We saw two bears, both smaller black bears, in an area noted for its huckleberry bushes.
About an hour before the turnoff for Stewart I stopped at “Ball 2”, a modern lodge which offers heli-skiing in the winter. Their road sign said ‘Tire Repair’ so I thought I stop and have the tire I had plugged myself checked or at least replace it with the spare since I’ve picked up an odd shuddering and vibration in the steering wheel at 45 miles per hour. We ended up simply swapping the bad tire for the spare but it only took a few miles to see I still had the shudder.
We made the turn for Steward and Hyder and soon entered a spectacular valley—the most spectacular scenery of our trip. I saw a glacier so close I think I could throw a stone from the roadside and hit blue ice. This valley was also very windy. With the dark rain clouds, the looming mountains on both sides, the roaring waterfalls coming down off the mountains, and the blue ice of the glaciers so close, we were truly in a wild setting.
About 27 miles in from the cutoff we turned back a stone road to a BC recreation area and trailhead—Lake Clement. At the end we found a small lake and turnaround and two-track leading further in. There we found a single camping spot—just for us! After arming up with the bear spray we followed the two-track and overhanging branches soon made it apparent we couldn’t have driven any further in Mocha Joe. A jeep with the windshield down or an ATV would be the only vehicles which could. And about then we saw a very fresh bear scat, filled with soapberries.
We made noise and walked another quarter-mile but the two-track turned away from the lake and steeply up the mountain so we decided that was enough and headed back for the van for supper.

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Tuesday, 19 August -

Today was a travel day. We continued up the South Klondike Highway from our camp along Tutshi Lake to Carcross. There we stopped at the visitor’s center to use the phone. This also happens to be a major station of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad and the train was there. Today it had four antique-style passenger cars and we saw it leave with a light load of passengers. We also saw at least four tour buses disgorging passengers for a few minutes of walk-around time in the tiny town before they’d reboard the bus and continue on their tours.
I needed the phone to call in for an extension of the non-resident permit for my shotgun; it expires on the 23rd. This sounds simple on the Canada Firearms Centre website: “If you need to extend the permit, call 1-800-xxx-xxxx.”
My first call was picked up quickly but the person could only transfer me to the ‘Chief Firearms Officer’ for Yukon and BC. After a ten minute wait, another person came on and said I needed to talk to the ‘Short-term Extensions Office of the Chief Firearms Officer’ and switched me. After a wait of about ten minutes, the phone answered with a recording announcing this is only a recording and short-term extensions may take up to a week to process and be sure to provide this, this, this, this, etc--- in other words a list of at least a dozen details. There is no way any human could keep up with all the details and then answer them in a recording.
I tried my best but was eventually cut off by the voice mail system as I was providing some of the details. The system asked if I wanted to hear what I had recorded or wanted to continue. I selected continue. It said ‘Sorry you’re having trouble, please call back at another time. Your message has been sent’. So here I am four days from permit expiration and no idea whether I’ll get an extension in time.
I called the Firearm Centre again and this time waited 15 minutes to talk to someone who, naturally, could not help but switched me to the Chief Firearms Officer’s regular (not short-term extensions) number. After another 15 minute wait, that one informed me that due to volume of calls my call cannot be taken at this time and hung up.
I called the border customs office where I had crossed in to Canada and asked if I could simply drive back the 50 miles to the border and get a new permit. Yes, that’s possible (but of course costs $25 and 100 miles of driving to get back here to Carcross). But then Labashi had another idea. We’re headed down through British Columbia and two-days down is another border crossing going west into Alaska at Stewart, BC/Hyder AK. I could do the same thing there. We called an agent at that border crossing and she assured me I could get a new declaration there. In the meantime I can try again at the Chief of Firearms office to see if my extension has been processed by that time.
After that bureaucratic adventure we visited the Carcross Desert- affectionately known as the smallest desert in the world. This is a quarter-mile-by-quarter-mile section of sand and pines. The sand is glacial and came from the bottom of a dried up lake. Winds blew the sand here and it’s deep enough to prevent most undergrowth from taking hold— making a nice little ‘desert’.
We then took the Tagish cutoff to connect with the Alaska Highway. Once there, it was a 200-mile jaunt to Watson Lake. There we used a wi-fi connection to check email and upload a blog entry before making supper, then heading south into BC on the Cassiar Highway.
We drove the very remote-feeling road for about an hour before finding an old gravel pit for the night.

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