Hyder (8/28/2005)

This week we continued heading south to the Lower 48. On the way we took the Cassiar Highway (BC #37) to visit a new area of Alaska to us. The Cassiar Highway starts near Watson Lake and goes to Kitwanga. The Cassiar is 90% paved but the first day on the road wrecked havoc on our 5th wheel. That evening we discovered that the food in our kitchen’s upper cabinet had fallen into the middle cabinet. The floor of the upper cabinet broke through. Luckily the second day was not near as bad. Near the southern end of the Cassiar there is a spur road to Stewart, BC - Hyder, Alaska. It is an awesome side trip. On the way to Stewart/Hyder we passed another tidewater glacier ‘Bear Glacier’. It was beautiful. Then we drove through Stewart and stayed at a RV Park in Hyder. Hyder is a very funky town: one dirt road through town, half boarded up, falling down buildings, half unique shops. Some of my favorite shops were: a jewelry store with it’s own owner/designer, a fire stone pizza place (with very good pizza), Boundary Gallery and Gifts: a fudge store with a very special owner, and a tea/coffee shop. The fudge store owner told us about the ‘Annual Hyder Bush Woman Competition‘. It consists of: 1) Splitting a block of wood, 2) Catching a fish, 3) Washing laundry, 4) Hanging the laundry to dry, 5) Shooting an attacking bear, 6) Running to the kitchen, 7) Flipping a pancake, 8) Diapering the baby, and 9) Putting on lipstick as you run to the finish line. Actually they just needed to hit the block of wood with an axe, cast the fishing line into the water, hang a piece of laundry, shoot the pretend bear with a water pistol, flip the pancake, diaper a baby doll, and put on the lipstick as they run. The winner took 58 seconds (this year, last year she took 52 seconds) to do it all. After the owner told us about the competition she showed us a video of this years competition. Very fun.
After we walked through Hyder, we drove out of town to the Fish Creek Wildlife Viewing Area - a bear watching area. Fish Creek Wildlife Viewing Area is 3 miles out of Hyder where when the salmon run, the bears (both black and grizzly) come. The US Forest Service built a board walk above the creek where bears can be easily observed and photographed. While we were there a small grizzly came walking up the creek. As he walked through the water the fish were splashing to get away from him. Soon I heard another group of splashes and saw another small grizzly just a little way downstream. Soon the 2 bears chased each other under the boardwalk where I was standing and ran up the road. As I turned around I saw what had chased them away, a very large grizzly. He walked slowly downstream where he chased away another bear. We stayed a little longer but when we did not see any additional bears, we left the area in our truck, 4 people in the cab and 2 in the back. As we were driving away I spotted another bear on a rock above the road. We stopped (my sister in the truck telling Rich to go - we were too close to the bear for the folks in the bed of the truck, and her husband telling Rich to stop so we could see the bear better). In the meantime the 2 in the back were watching two more bears walking toward them on the road. Very exciting.
The next day we drove past the Wildlife Viewing Area to see the Salmon Glacier. It was a 20 mile drive on a very bad dirt road. My brother-in-law drove us (white knuckled all the way) in his RV. The road was narrow and steep and full of potholes. It took all morning but it was an awesome trip. We had seen a lot of glaciers but this was the first time we had seen one from above. You could really see the crevasses.
As we were driving down the Fraser Valley on the last few days we saw several groups of rafters coming down the river. Sometime in the future I would like to take a raft trip in this area. It looked like a lot of fun. Speaking of future trips….. I would like to recommend visiting the Hyder area to anyone who has the time. I never expected to see bears in their natural element like this. There are bears like this in several parks and lodges in Alaska but they are difficult and expensive to get to. So Hyder is very special. But,,,,,
Hyder is on the brink of some major changes. Next year they plan on paving the road in town. This will eliminate the town’s speed bumps (AKA potholes). It has an all weather deep water port. There is talk in town about cruise lines coming to town. The US Forest Service is planning to begin charging for use of the Fish Creek Wildlife Viewing Area. If the cruise lines come to town there will be thousands of people in town. Most likely Diamonds International will buy one of the empty boarded up buildings as will Tanzanite International and Little Switzerland. There will bus loads of people at the Wildlife viewing area. Go now if you can.