7/30 - 8/8: 4000 miles to go!

Friday July 30 to Sunday August 8, 4000 miles in 10 days: John and I made a rule for ourselves: 400 miles a day, every day! It was long and hard, but it worked and we got home just in time for work and marching band practice on Monday morning. We travelled through so much territory, all of it so tempting to explore. But mostly, we didn’t stop and now I’ve got to go back and spend some time in the Yukon and British Columbia - and more Alaska, of course!

We were escorted through a British Columbia forest fire...

We did make time for one more foray into Alaska. Hyder is a southeastern Alaskan town that’s surrounded by British Columbia. The road into town is spectacular in the usual Alaska way. We passed below glacier after glacier and breathtaking water falls tumbling out of the glaciers to the lakes along the road. At the road’s end is Stewart, BC and Hyder, side by side, facing the end of a very narrow fjord called the Portland Canal. Chum salmon swim up fish creek from there, and we drove up to the viewing platform along the creek, hoping to watch bears catch salmon. The salmon were all over and beautiful to study from above. A few dead and partially eaten ones were along the creek’s edge. But the bears we saw were on the road rather than in the water. Maybe it gets to be too much of a good thing!

Border crossing from Stewart BC to Hyder AK is not a big deal.

Chum Salmon in spawning colors

Chum, after the bears dine

That morning as we drove towards Hyder, we had 2 very exciting bear crossings on the highway and I thought to myself, what are these cubs doing without their mothers? That evening, on the way up the gravel road beside Fish Creek, another bear ambled out onto the road in front of us, followed by her 2 cubs. They took their sweet time, and one cub sat down and scratched. It suddenly dawned on me. The bears I’d seen earlier were adult black bears! They’re about ½ the size of browns (or grizzlies) and by comparison they look pretty cute and cuddly.