Wednesday July 30, 2014 Stewart, British Columbia, Canada

Wild flowers along the way

We got up to a cloudy morning.  I made coffee and we did what we could as far as checking e-mail and Facebook.  We took our time getting ready for the drive to Stewart, BC a distance of 182 miles.  The road yesterday was very rough with a lot of construction activity.  At our briefing we were told to expect more of the same.  We pulled out of the park at 9:30, nearly the last ones to leave.  A couple of stops later we managed to lock up last place.

Mountain Ash and Daisey's 

Our route was south on PH-37 to PH-37A.  Most of the way the scenery was again forest and lakes.  The forest varied from tall thick trees to tundra with sparse trees.  The good news was that the road was much better than yesterday.  We only encoutered a few bad parts and all of them had been marked.  We did have two places where the road was one lane for a short distance.  All the time the snow covered coastal mountain range was ahead.  The scenery was sometimes shrouded in clouds and we encountered a lot of rain.

Bear Glacier

We did stop three times to look for geocaches.  I only found one.  All were part of a series along this highway.  When I logged the find, I discovered that the cache owner had archived the series because he had moved out of the area. Just before getting to Stewart we stopped at a view of Bear Glacier.  I checked and there was an earthcache there.  I think I got enough information to claim it as a find.


We got to the Bear River RV Park in Stewart at 2:45.  We were set up in a pull through site behind Brian and Sally.  We are alongside Jack and Jackie, so close the slides nearly touch.  This park and town are in a deep valley with lots of shade trees.  Surprisingly it was quite warm in the afternoon. I cleaned the windows of the Jeep.  The rules here are no water in buckets to clean cars or RVs.  They don't want the soap and road film reaching the water.  The entire economy here seems to depend on the tourists coming to see the bears.  If the water gets polluted to the point the salmon don't return, then the bears won't come and then the tourists will have no reason to come.  Just a drive through the town of Stewart and you can see the town is shrinking in the business area. Many closed businesses.  We have noticed all along our time in Alaska and Canada that there are a lot of businesses along the highway that are closed.  A lot of failed dreams.

You gotta go after them

We drove into Hyder to see the bears.  Hyder is in Alaska.  There is no US customs station here.  You just drive into the USA.  I thought Stewart had a lot of closed businesses.

Hyder is nearly a ghost town.  Along the creek the Forest Service has built a long boardwalk along the creek for bear viewing.  I suppose the boardwalk helps keep the bears and people apart. Our Golden Age Passports were good for the admission to the parking and boardwalk.

A black bear fishing

When we got there a black bear was fishing.  He caught one and one got away.  The bear walked around for awhile and then went into the woods. When we were returning to the parking area we saw a brown bear walking toward us on the road.  We stayed in the fenced area.  The bear turned into the woods about 200' before getting to our area.  It then came out walking in the stream and was under the viewing area.  The bear caught a fish and went under the boardwalk to eat it in the brush.  He was just under us a few feet, we were looking down on him.  After finishing that fish, he went back under the boardwalk to the stream.  He jumped in the water and chased a large salmon in a circle before catching it.  We left after he went back on the opposite shore to feast.

This guy caught two salmon while we were watching

Back at the coach we tried to catch upon computer stuff, but e-mail was about the best we could do.  We were in bed by 10:30.