STEWART, BC
August 9, 2011

It's a free day so we slept in, watched movies and went downtown for brunch.  Surprisingly this little town has some good restaurants.  Excellent salmon dinner at Bitter Creek Cafe.  As a bonus were were able to hook into the hote'ls wifi. with good connection, while we were there. 

We took a leisurely walk on the boardwalk in the estuary near the tidal marsh looking for flowers and birds.

Hyder, AK is where the Tongass National forest is located. The park has a bear viewing platform for the safety of park visitors and the bears. We were told not to take any flash photos if we sighted bears. One of the Rangers told us that the road, now 20 mph, will be blacktopped next year.   I'm sure that will change the face of Hyder, AK forever.

More bear viewing at 7:00 p.m. for 1 1/2 hrs - saw 200-300 black ear walk up stream , grab a salmon walk under a bridge and keep going out of sight.

Some visitors spend hours here waiting for a bear to show up.  Others plan vacations around the bear viewing.  An hour or so later we watched a 700-800 # grizzly walk on the path alongside the viewing platform and cross into the water.  He ran gleefully through the water trying to catch a salmon.  The odds are that a bear is successful only 1 in every 10 attempts to catch a salmon.  funny how the salmon swam in the opposite direction when the bear got close to them.  The salmon even go after the sea gulls if they land close to their spawning place.

I love Bears!

We didn't make it to Salmon Glacier.  Those who did said you could drive alongside the glacier ice for several miles.  And rather than seeing it fro below you had an opportunity to see it from above.  (We had already seen glaciers from above when we took that flight to Mt. McKinley).






When your return from Hyder, you must stop at the Canadian customs stop, every time you cross into Hyder. Be sure to carry your passport!

The picture is at the border between the U.S. and Canada.