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We pulled out of Smithers after picking up the last of our supplies intended to last us the length of the Stewart-Cassiar Highway. At about 545 miles we planned on spending about a week on this portion of our Grand Loop road trip tour of British Columbia. Mountains, forests and lakes were a given, throw in a couple scenic glaciers and maybe a few bears, and you have all the ingredients of a good adventure. The Stewart-Cassiar did not disappoint.

Note: This is part two of our “Grand Loop of British Columbia” trip. If you missed part one you can find it here: A Loop of British Columbia, The Fishing Highway

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Where the heck were we in British Columbia anyway? This map ought to give you a better idea of our route:

We got a good start on the highway on our first day out. Alright, well, we skipped several potential camps and went right to the one we really wanted to stay at, but upon arrival two of the four sites were occupied and the two vacant ones were right next to the two occupied ones. This wasn’t quite what we had in mind, so we kept moving. We found ourselves just outside of Stewart on our first night.

Since the previous day was getting short we backtracked a bit and checked out Bear Glacier not too far out of Stewart. Impressive to be sure, but I don’t know how long it will be before it gets downgraded to a snowfield.

I was just as impressed by the series of waterfalls right next door to the glacier. It looked like something out of a tropical rainforest or a fantasy novel, with all the separate threads of water spilling off of rocks and through deep chasms of rock.

We still had another day until our reservation for the bear viewing platform at Fish Creek, so the next day we headed through Hyder, Alaska and back into British Columbia and made our way to the Salmon Glacier overlook. There is no border crossing to get into Hyder, and as you cross back into BC further up the road you are essentially on a dead end road, so things are pretty informal, until you want to head back to Stewart (more on that later). We passed the Fish Creek Wildlife Viewing Site and just a mile up the road we ran into a little black bear wandering down the road. I assume he was heading for a lunch at Fish Creek, but we didn’t stop to ask and he just walked right by as we sat quietly in the truck. This was actually bear number four for the trip. We saw three bears the day earlier, but two darted across the highway in front of us, and we didn’t get a shot. The other one was cooling off in the Skeena River, but it was a long way off, so again no shot. This one was up close and personal.

We continued up the road to the Salmon Glacier. It was quite a sight to behold, spilling out of the mountains, the river of ice collides with the side of the mountain where the overlook is located, and then splits in two directions, one forming an ice choked lake, and the other melting to form the Salmon River on its short run to the saltwater of the Portland Canal.

The Salmon Glacier is pretty massive, something you could study for a long time. With all its cracks and crevices, hummocks and rivers of rock it is carrying, it’s hard to fathom all that you are seeing before you.

The views were amazing, but so were the swarms of mosquitoes. With the bugs, we almost decided to head off the mountain, although we originally planned to stay the night overlooking the glacier. We had some lunch, loaded up on photos and bug bites and pointed the truck back towards Hyder, but in the end we turned around. I’m glad we did. Who knows when we’ll make it back here again? We braved the bugs and ended up finding a great site far away from the road and the other camps materializing around the overlook. We spent the rest of the day watching the glacier and listening to it crack and groan every so often.

The next morning we were up early, we had a reservation for a day at the Fish Creek Wildlife Viewing site and it was more likely we were going to be able to see a bear in the early morning. The sun broke over the mountains and touched the peaks overlooking Salmon Glacier as we made our way back off the mountain toward Fish Creek.

It was a nice drive down to Fish Creek and we found out we had missed the first bear of the day that was in the stream eating salmon when the viewing platform opened for the day.

True to its name, Fish Creek was full of fish, chum salmon to be exact. They were shoulder to shoulder jockeying for the prime spawning positions.

Some had already accomplished their mission and were returning their nutrients to the streams ecosystem.

It is really fascinating to watch these fish completing their lifecycle, but after a few hours you really just want to see a bear.

After about four hours, most of the morning crowd had left, and this big brown bear came wandering into the scene from downstream.

He chased the salmon around for a few minutes, mainly just resulting in a lot of splashing. I figured it would be like shooting fish in a barrel, these fish were so thick, but it took a bit of work to get one cornered.

Then the claws found some flesh, and it was game over for this salmon.

Strange enough, the bear brought the salmon up to the bank, and as near as I could tell, never even took a bite. Not as fresh as expected? I guess with so many meals in the stream a bear can be picky.

Not long after, the bear wandered back down the stream the way it came, and after about six or seven minutes of thrilling action, we were just left with the salmon splashing in the stream below us.

We stuck around a while longer, and then decided to move on. We headed back through Hyder and on to the border check station. Hyder appears to be a shadow of its former self. Most of the businesses seemed closed, and the rest of town has clearly seen its better days.

With the only real entry into Hyder (AK) being the road from Stewart (BC), unless you arrived by boat or air, you would think the border crossing back into Canada would be a rather simple one. The singlewide trailer that serves as the border crossing “office” would lead you to think that too. But, we were lucky enough to be selected for a “random search.” That translates from Canadian as, “we are going to look through all your stuff, turn it upside down and inside out while you stand over there, and when we are done you can put it all back together again.” The border agent smirked as he pulled on his nitrile gloves. Being packed for a month on the road, they had their work cut out for them. They gave up after getting about a third of the way through the back of the camper. Twenty minutes later we had our truck back. Welcome to Canada!

On we went on our way back to the highway, a bit disgusted, but still excited about our bear viewing luck. The adventure will continue in part three.