Where The Bears Are...Or Aren't

When we left Whitehorse after getting our new tire mounted, we headed south back to the Alaska Highway. It was a cold and rainy day. At the Yukon River bridge we stopped to view the river, which looked like blue-green glass, and read plaques about the Lewes Dam. We stopped at the Rancheria Lodge and spent $200 for a fill-up. 

Then we turned off the Alaska Highway and onto the Cassiar Highway, an alternative road. 

We decided to find a place to boondock. After passing several turnouts that did not look suitable and accidentally passing one that did (no place close to turn around to go back), we found the perfect spot well off the road--a large, flat turnout with plenty of room. No one else was there, but people had camped there before. Not only were there several fire pits, it was obvious that people had emptied their holding tanks on the ground. This isn’t legal or environmentally-friendly but understandable when dump stations are few and far between and can cost over $10 for a one-time use. 

When we’re alone in a remote area, David often mentions the movie Race with the Devil about some RVers who find themselves chased around by devil worshippers after stumbling on a human sacrifice ceremony. It has to be one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen and not one to see before you go RVing. He brought it up at least four times today. I’d rather not be reminded of this movie.

Until recently, the Cassiar Highway was a gravel road. Now it’s mostly paved, but much of it is winding and narrow with steep drop-offs of 5-8’ on either side. It’s not nearly as bad as Top of the World Highway, but it too has no shoulders, no guardrails and no painted lines (except for the most southern part). It’s as if the road was built on a berm. It was a bit scary for me but didn’t bother David except that he found the lack of lines on the road taxing. There were some construction and gravel stretches. 

The next day we took a hike in Boya Lake Provincial Park where we saw a couple beaver dams and trail posts that had been clawed by bears. Light reflected from shells on the bottom of the lake causes the water to look aquamarine. 

In Jade City we stopped at a jade store with lots of jade products made from jade from a nearby mine (but too expensive for our budget). 

Throughout the day, interesting cloud formations stood out against a pure light-blue sky. The scenery on this road is fabulous with bigger trees than in the more northern permafrost areas and lots of small lakes, green grassy marshes and bogs. There were a few eerie stretches of tall, skinny, toothpick trees blackened from a fire. 

Our campground was on a pretty lake with a nice view of a mountain sprinkled with what looked like powdered sugar. Neptune was on the picnic table when the owner’s dog came trotting over. Neptune didn’t seem afraid, but when he started to leave, the dog lurched forward to pursue, so I grabbed the cat, who still didn’t have enough sense to be scared, and put him inside. The rain finally stopped. In the morning we walked over to the lake accompanied by the dog who followed us around acting expectant and excited, waiting to play(?) with the cats. I covered Plato’s eyes (so he wouldn’t panic) as I carried him to the truck and had to turn my back to the dog who was jumping up, trying to get at the cat. David distracted the dog while I got Neptune to the truck. 

The day started out cloudy and cold, warmed up to 59, then ended up cold and rainy. We saw three black bears but they disappeared quickly into the woods. We also saw a small dead bear in the road, possibly a cub. We learned about avalanches at one stop. They’re a big problem and concern in winter. 

Then we turned off the highway and drove to Stewart, 40 miles east, along a scenic road through a narrow canyon with several glaciers easily visible and a rushing river below. We stayed at the full hook-up private campground, which was a large lot with grass and some vegetation. We walked the estuary boardwalk in Stewart.

The main reason we had come to Stewart was to go to Hyder to see the bears. I had heard that grizzlies congregate at Fish Creek in Hyder to eat salmon, and the national park service had built a boardwalk for people to observe them safely. We had seen grizzlies on our trip, but I wanted to see more, and I expected to see lots in Hyder. 

In the morning we went to the visitor’s center. I asked the kid at the counter if there were any bears in Hyder. He said he didn’t know. 

We drove the two miles from Stewart, BC to Hyder, AK. Hyder is a teeny town cut off from the rest of Alaska. It has a population of about 100. We stopped at the general store. The store owner was bemoaning the lack of customers. He said usually at this time there are lines of motorcoaches parked outside. He also complained about the tourists who go to Fish Creek for five minutes and say there aren’t any bears. “You have to wait an hour or so,” he said. “This is wilderness, not a zoo.” We continued on to Fish Creek. David saw a sign that said it was a fee area. I didn’t know there was a fee. I looked at the brochure I had just gotten from the visitor’s center. It said there was a fee but didn’t say how much. We got to the parking area where lots of cars were parked. We could see people standing in ponchos under umbrellas on the boardwalk and viewing platform. I went to the park ranger at the kiosk to ask the fee. “$5 a person,” she said, “but it’s good all day.” “Are there any bears now?” I asked. “There’s one,” she said, but it’s at quite a distance and difficult to see. The bears mostly arrive early in the morning or later in the evening, after 7 pm.” 

We decided that rather than pay $10 to wait around all day in the rain for bears that may or may not materialize, we would drive up to Salmon Glacier. Maybe we would see a bear along the way. We started driving the 23-mile dirt and gravel road. At first the muddy road had lots of small potholes and followed Salmon Creek. We didn’t see any bears. Then the road got steep. We passed a (copper?) mining operation. The road got steeper, windier and narrower. There were no shoulders. There was a sheer drop-off in many places. Mist and fog drifted among and above the trees, and small waterfalls cascaded down the mountainside next to the road. We stopped to view the toe of the glacier and could see the braided river far below. When we got to the top, there was a small one-person tent, a couple Porta Johns, a trash bin and “Bear Man” selling postcards and bear DVD’s for $10 from the back of his station wagon. 

We looked at the dramatic Salmon Glacier saddled with fog and mist. You could really see the “river of ice”. It was cold. When we were ready to leave, it got even foggier. 

I said it wasn’t safe. It was bad enough driving up, but we were on the mountain side. Going down we would be on the edge. David said not to worry. Sometimes it was so foggy you couldn’t see the view at all. It was nauseating how close we were in places to the edge, which was ill-defined and broken away in places. But we made it down safely. When we passed Fish Creek it was still early afternoon, so we decided to head back to the campground. I would have loved to have seen more grizzlies, but we were too tired to return to Fish Creek that evening.