September 22, 2013 Sunday
Day 78

A peaceful morning, sunny, low 40s, a cool soft breeze blowing. Our campground is so nice, clean, quiet, with gorgeous views of mountains and the lake. We got all ready to leave and BAM! our peaceful morning just got very stressful. We had trouble getting the camper up the steep gravel exit drive out of the campground; the wheels of our car just spun around and around. We tried going out the entrance and same thing. So we went to the owners home and told them our predicament. They were so nice, Steve and Michael discussed the best way for us to get out, and Steve offered to drive it for us, all the way to the main road, since it was all gravel and steep. Ann and I got in her truck and followed Michael and Steve. They made it, yay! And along the way, Steve gave Michael some tips on driving on steep loose gravel, which hopefully we will never have to do again, but now we know it can be done.

We continued south on The Cassiar, heading from Iskut, BC to possibly Stewart, BC -if we decide to take this side trip.

We passed beautiful lakes, dotted with lily pads. Saw a big black bear right on the side of the road.

Had a nice stop at Bell 2 Lodge -coffee for Michael, and I ordered chai tea and a cup of their delicious beef barley soup with huge chunks of tender beef, fresh potatoes, carrots, celery. Really hit the spot on this cold day.

By 1:30pm, at the junction of the Cassiar Highway and the Stewart-Hyder Access Road we made a decision to take a scenic side trip to Stewart, BC and Hyder, Alaska, even though it was raining and 49 degrees.

Stewart, population 699, is a cute town on the Portland Canal and 2 miles from Hyder, Alaska. The 36 mile drive along the Stewart-Hyder Access Road was fantastic. We saw: Bear Glacier, all icy blue, right next to the road. The Coast Mountains rose up high on both sides of the road. Also saw beautiful fast flowing waterfalls, lime green and deep dark green moss fields, creeks, snowfields, the narrow, steep-walled Bear River Canyon.
Avalanche signs warning of falling rocks were placed all along the road and signs of rock landslides were evident, there were huge boulders on the roadside.

We set up camp at Bear River RV Park in Stewart, BC, then quickly drove the 2 miles to Hyder, Alaska; yes, one more visit to Alaska! There was no US Customs staton as we entered Hyder. I guess because you can't get to anywhere else in the US from here. Upon leaving Hyder, though, we had to stop at a small Canadian Customs Station for brief questions in order to
re-enter Canada.
Hyder, population 100, is known for its rich silver mines and was heavily mined in 1917-18. Today there are a few shops, cafes and a post office. We bought postcards for our kids so we could mail them from Hyder, with Hyder postmarks. Hope they make it, we'll see.

Next we stopped in Caroline's Boundary Gallery where we met Caroline, an artist and former music teacher. We could have stayed and talked with her all night. She had great stories. One especially cool story was about how her (now deceased) husband, a logger, could whack a tree with an axe and tell if the wood was concert grade wood, with tonal qualities suitable for making musical instruments. He had no musical talent, she said, in fact when he sang, he made such a noise that she was afraid the wild animals in the forest would come, thinking he was making a mating call, haha! She was the musician in the family, but she had no ability to determine the tone of a tree. They made a great couple.
Anyway, the story gets better, her husband sold wood to musical instrument makers and he was quite well known in the industry because of his ability to find and select such premium wood. One of his main buyers was the head guy at Martin Guitars, among others.

One day in 2002, her husband found a beautiful Sitka Spruce that had fallen on their property and he detected that this tree was very special, high grade wood. The experts came to confirm what he already knew of its quality and it was discovered that it was a 416 year old Sitka Spruce. Her husband decided that there were enough guitars in the world and the wood from this special tree would only be used to make dulcimers. So, over the years, they sold pieces of this wood to well-known dulcimer makers, one in Pilot Mountain, NC, another in Florida and so on.
Caroline had a couple dulcimers in her store (made out of the wood from this tree) for sale and she played us a hauntingly beautiful rendition of Amazing Grace on one of them. She even gave us a brief lesson on how to play. I bet it was cool to be her student; she must have been a great teacher! What a lovely experience to have met Caroline. She really added joy to our day. I will post her picture with this blogpost.

Hating to leave Caroline, we went to Fish Creek, the bear viewing platform and boardwalk. There were only a very few lethargic salmon left in the creek, and no bears to be seen. We were a few weeks late, because we heard they had had a record salmon run this year.

Next we headed out to Salmon Glacier. We had picked up a self-guided driving tour pamphlet with information to read along the 17 mile road. After mile 9, the road got too bad, I was afraid we might slide off and into the river a hundred feet down. This road was narrow, winding, muddy, with straight up mountains on one side and a sheer drop to the river on the other side. No guardrail. Evidence of rock slides were numerous and some boulders looked like they had fallen recently. As soon as we could, we turned around, deciding we didn't really need to see Salmon Glacier after all.

We left Hyder and Alaska for the last time, went through Canadian Customs and back to Stewart, BC. Had beers, salads and pretty good pizza at Silverados, then back to camp.

Wildlife Sightings
Bear