July 6, 2012 – Bear River RV Park, Stewart, BC, Canada

The short day’s drive to Stewart brought us down the Cassiar Highway and then we turned onto the Glacier Highway, so named because of the proximity of nearly 20 glaciers near the highway. The town was started because of the gold and silver mines in this area. According to the brochure, the area had a population of nearly 10,000 in the early 1900’s. Now Stewart’s population is only about 700. The brochure boasts this as being Canada’s most northern ice free port which is on the Portland Canal.

Shortly after leaving this morning, Bears have the right of way!

Going from Stewart, British Columbia, into Hyder, Alaska, there is no customs stop. There is only a sign saying you are entering the USA. Hyder is popular with tourists because of the large number of bears which come to Fish Creek in the Tongass National Forest down a rough gravel road. As you cross into Hyder, population about 200, the pavement ends and becomes a rough gravel road. The town seems to be really run down. They had a post office and a couple of bars, but those seemed to be the only businesses still open. There was a sign saying to slow for a school, but the only place it looked like there could be a school was a community building. Coming back to Stewart, there is a Canadian customs stop. I’m not sure why they bother. Obviously, we did drive to Hyder and to Fish Creek, but the salmon haven’t started running yet, so there were no bears either. The park ranger said they had only had a couple of bears so far this year.

Hyder Alaska Main Street

On the way here, we were delayed at a few areas where some crews were clearing out along the road, cutting trees and logging. In a few places logs were stacked up to be loaded for use. Other places they were stacked up, teepee style, to be burned. They seemed to be fairly close to the forest so at first we couldn’t imagine they would be burned. We talked to a flagman and he said they would be burned later in the fall. We presume that will be when there is snow cover on everything.

Starting a pile of trees to burn.

Since we could not stop, this is the best we could do to give you and idea of the size of the finished piles of trees to burn.