Into Alaska and Out

Rained all night and finally let up at daylight, but low clouds hung over the lakeside mountains when we got up and on the road. We took the spur road to Stewart, B. C. and Hyder, Alaska, and soon came to Bear Glacier, the one glacier along this route that does more than just peek at us over the top of the mountains and comes right down to road level, forming a small brownish lake at its bottom. Past there the sky began to partially clear as we wound down through the Bear River canyon, past avalanche areas where numerous streams of meltwater roped down the steep rock mountainsides.

Stewart was a decent town although somewhat down-at-the-heels in spots. We found a bakery that served muffins and coffee and an information office where we were informed it was somewhat early to expect any bears to be fishing at Fish Creek near Hyder, part of the reason we came this way. We drove on along the Portland Canal, the long, winding inlet of the Pacific that forms the International boundary, which looked to be at low tide and was choked with hundreds of old pilings, and other unknown industry of the past. It definitely smelled of the ocean, though. There was no U.S. customs office here so we drove into Hyder where the main street was dirt and full of potholes. It didn't matter much though, because there didn't seem to be a single store open for business of any kind. A sign on the front of some sort of general store read, "Hyder - home of about 100 happy souls and a few old s---heads". After a couple of blocks we turned around and headed back to the border, where a young customs officer posed the usual questions and waved us through.

Back on the wild Cassiar we continued north through rugged terrain, the road being in very good condition for the first section, but gradually becoming narrower and rougher with patches of gravel. Crossed innumerable rivers and creeks, large and small and all generally rushing headlong with their load of snowmelt, boiling toward the sea. Saw several bears along the way, and a moose couple - the bull with a small pair of velvety antlers poking from his forehead (pic). Stopped for a short rest where the Bell-Irving river crossed, and for gas at the Bell II resort ($1.45/liter). South of Iskut the road skirted the east side of Eddontenajon Lake, which figured into a chapter of the Edward Hoagland book I was just reading.

We checked into the Mountain Shadow RV park, a few miles north of Iskut, about 2 p.m. The park is in a meadow at the base of several large mountains and on the end of a small lake which is the first in a series that, along with the Eddontenajon and the Kinaskan, form the Iskut River, which runs south and joins the larger Stikine and eventually empties into the Pacific near Wrangall, Alaska. Windy and cool.