Moominmama's Adventures: A Final Glacier Visit

 

In which Moominmama views Salmon Glacier and salmon with bears, touching a toe back into Alaska before returning to the Lower 48...

As Moominmama writes this, she has been allowed back into the U.S. after making it through the Yukon and an often smoky British Columbia.

But one of the great joys of this trip turned out to be a side trip into Stewart B.C., which shares a border with the tiny town of Hyder, Alaska. If the area looks familiar, it's because it has been featured in films -- like The Thing and more recently, Insomnia, which apparently features Bear Glacier to the right.

The two towns do look like a throwback to an earlier time, with old wood houses, small barns and equipment saved outside to mine for parts, but it's a fun and friendly place. Summer visitors are on the increase, but tourism is still a new source of income. The major industry continues to be mining.

Gord, who once drove heavy equipment for the mines, is a local who invested in a mid-sized tour bus and offers a daily trip up to the Salmon Glacier pictured at the top. While I could have driven myself, the road is narrow and used by enormous trucks owned by the mining companies. I am glad that I forked over the money to let someone else navigate those dusty roads.

To get there, however, requires crossing an international border between the adjacent towns. It's a quirk of the line between Alaska and British Columbia along the coast. A fjord called the Portland Canal reaches inland and provides water access (at one time, the only access) to the area. The community/ies developed thanks to the Yukon Gold Rush, and gold mining is now resuming in the area. While no border guard stands at the crossing into Hyder, I had to show my passport coming back into Stewart each time.

Besides the dramatic Salmon Glacier, the other reason to cross the border into Hyder is to go to a U.S. bear viewing platform in the Tongass National Forest. In late summer, bears come to the river to gorge on salmon. 

The Park Service requires visitors to get a ticket in advance to control the number of people present at any one time. And there's no guarantee one will see a bear.

But Moominmama did get lucky, having heard the early morning hours were among the best for bear viewing. 

This bear below was not the brightest, but a ranger told me he was still a relatively young grizzly, maybe 3-years-old or so. His salmon catching skills still need work. But he did eventually catch a live one and carry it off. He'll need to catch many more to fatten up for winter!

It was a delight to watch and a fitting ending to my final Alaska adventure. 

From there, I drove south through a fire-ravaged British Columbia. I spent one night at Ten Mile Lake and got in a swim despite the hazy conditions.

But the smoke got worse from there, and I opted for a longer but more coastal route to reach Vancouver, spending an overnight in an old parking lot in what was the former Olympic Village in Whistler, B.C.

I am now at my brother's in Portland, Oregon. The epic adventure is over! I'll be here for a week and then return to Yellowstone National Park to work through the first week of October. 

After storing the trailer, I'll return east for the winter so hope to see you all very soon! It has been an amazing year of travel, and I'll not soon forget it. I leave you with a shot of some of my beloved glaciers and the valley that they shaped outside Stewart and Hyder.