Saturday 9/1
This is our 3rd Rabbit/Rabbit on the trip. In some ways it feels as if we’ve only been gone a few days, on the other hand, early memories of the trip seem so long ago. On the first of July, we were only 4 days into the trip, barely into Canada. On the first of August we had just left Anchorage on our way to Seward with the Kenai, Kodiak, Denali, Haines, and Skagway in front of us. Now on this day, we are headed down the steep hill toward home—only a few short days remain—it is bittersweet.
We leave our campsite at noonish. It’s gray and rainy and still cool—probably 45. We’re thinking that it’s in the 30’s at night—probably close to freezing. Fall is certainly upon us. Soon the sun pokes through, and the day improves.
At Kinaskin Lake we get up close and personal with an unidentified hawk. We’ve catalogued scores of new birds but have photos of a dozen or so that we’ll have to confirm when we have time.
The road is consistently narrow and sinuous except for a 3-mile stretch which is in good shape. We’re traveling between the Skeena and Coast Mountains. In one section we see the Andrei Glacier to the west—could this be our LAST glacier?
There are lakes and ponds everywhere…many have beaver lodges. The spongy habitat between these lakes looks ideal for moose…PRIME MOOSE LAND—MOVE IN SPECIAL! But, despite our eager expectations, we see no moose. Could we have seen our LAST big wild mammal? We check against the latitude of our first sightings in July and are disappointed to see that we are now below that magical line.
As we move south the ecology slowly changes. We’re now in areas of Spruce, Hemlock, and Huckleberries. At one point we see fresh snow high up on a mountain face—we’ve seen tons of snow along the way, but this is the first FRESH snow. We cross the spectacularly frothy Ningunsaw River—the scenery around us is stunning.
At the small settlement at Bell II Lodge (we never do learn why it’s Bell II, but assume there is/was also a Bell I), we see areas of logging activity, the first we’ve seen in weeks probably because the trees north of here are too stunted to be viable. We’re reminded of the cool logging equipment we saw two months ago at McLeod Lake.
As we approach Mezadin Junction, intermittent rain begins to fall. With hundreds of miles between roads, “junctions” are a big thing up here. This junction is particularly important to us because from here we’ll take our last scheduled side-trip and make our last visit to Alaska. At Mezadin, BC Route 37 splits—the main road continues south and a spur heads west to the towns of Stewart, BC and Hyder, AK. The spur runs through the Misty Fjords National Monument. Our guidebooks suggest that this is among the best scenery on the trip.
We park the Admiral at the junction and disconnect CJ for a quick, 40-mile dash to Stewart/Hyder. It’s after 3:00 PM, so we’ve got to hurry. 100 yards down the road, ironically just after Surprise Creek, BEAR! It’s a Black Bear. It’s in the roadside brush before we can get the cameras focused, but we know right where it ducked in, so we stop there expecting to be able to see it—IMPOSSIBLE—the brownish weeds and scrub are so thick that even a VERY black bear disappears almost immediately. I’m vaguely reminded of looking for a pure white golf ball in lush green rough (this has happened to me once or twice), and how EASY it should be to find. This bear is gone, but we’re excited that we’ve finally seen another big mammal. We speculate on the coincidence that’s involved in seeing animals. Most of these guys are invisible unless they’re right in the roadway—so to find them, you and they need to be in the right place at the right time—what are the odds?
We go another mile, round a bend, BEAR! Black bear #2 is munching grass on the right side of the road. As we slowly approach, he scampers across the road, climbs the guard wall and does a tightrope act as we roll by.
The scenery around us is breathtaking. We have NOT seen our last glacier. Here they abound. Glacier, glacier, glacier, icy blue faces hanging right above us in this narrow cleft pinched between the mountains. Sheer rock faces or steep walls of trees line the canyon. On the trip, we’ve seen hundreds of waterfalls, but here there are more waterfalls per mile than anyplace else we’ve been. We are not “dashing” toward Stewart/Hyder in the sense that we are moving rapidly, but we are “dashing” in the sense that we drive—stop to hyperventilate—drive 100’—stop--drive—stop—drive—stop. Because the mountainsides along the road are so precipitous, there are many avalanche warnings and sections where the road can be blocked if the danger is too great. In these sections we see whole hillsides where the trees have been mowed down by the crushing snow.
The afternoon light on the mountains and glaciers is intoxicating. We’re taking pictures at every turn. On this day we take more photographs than any other.
We come to Bear Glacier. It marches right down to the road. Across a small, silty lake, the tall, blue face is just a few hundred yards away.
Just after Bear Glacier…BEAR! Black bear #3 is on our left, noshing nonchalantly. We’re feeling REALLY good about this day. Three bears!
We follow Bear Creek into Stewart. This tiny town of about 300 sits on a vast, shallow bay. Clearly logging is part of the local economy because the bay is filled with rafts of floating logs waiting to be loaded or processed. The bay also has a couple of floating houses—maybe for the logging workers? There are also Canada Geese—unremarkable on your local golf course but special here since we’re in Canada.
Stewart’s baby sister is Hyder, AK. There’s a Canadian border post here, but remarkably no US point of entry…just cross the imaginary line, and you’re in the US of A. As far as we know, Hyder has one claim to fame: More bars per capita than any other US city…63 souls and a dozen or more saloons. There must be a very active local AA chapter. Many tourists take the Hyder pilgrimage to get “hyderized”. Chug a couple of ounces of Everclear, 190 proof grain alcohol, and you get a certificate. It’s also something you can add to your resume if you’re looking for additions to the “honors and awards” section.
If Hyder has a claim to fame on the number of bars, it should also be in the registry of “potholes per capita”. The roads are sub-terrible. We make one brief circuit, stopping to photograph the desolate Orthodox Church, and then we evacuate Hyder via the cute little Canadian customs post.
We’re expecting that we’ll make great time on the way back to the Admiral—after all, we’ve seen and photographed all the bears, mountains, glaciers, and waterfalls on the way in, so what’s to see on the way back? The return trip takes us a couple of hours. First, the light is completely different. It’s early evening, and the sun is gradually setting in the western end of the canyon so warm yellow light is bathing the mountains and glaciers. We can’t resist recapturing these pictures. Second, we’re seeing the landscape from the opposite perspective and finding features that we missed on the way in—notably the drama of the tightest part of the canyon cut by the dramatically surging Bear Creek.
I jokingly ask Nancy how many bears she thinks we’ll see on the way out. She answers, “Two”. Seconds later, BEAR! Number 4 on the day! A couple of miles down the road, BEAR! BEAR! a mother and cub—surprisingly separated by a couple hundred yards. The cub is skittish and hops back into the brush, but the mother is unimpressed and doesn’t let us interrupt her dinner. A few miles more, BEAR! Number 7—on Nancy’s side of the Jeep. We pull up close, and the bear continues to eat. It’s just a few feet from Nancy who’s cautiously taking pictures through her open window. 5 miles more, BEAR! #8! Incredible. We seem to have stumbled on the Grand Central Station of black bears.
Back at the Admiral, we re-umbilical CJ, and resume our southward journey. We can’t stop talking about this fabulous day—certainly in the Top 10 of the trip.
10 miles on the main road, BEAR! BEAR another mother and cub. Down the road a ways, BEAR! What a day, we’ve seen extraordinary scenery and 11 black bears. We stop just a few miles later at the Nass River. What a day indeed.
