STEWART, BRITISH COLUMBIA
August 8, 2011

Another 5 1/2 hours on the road today.  Over 244 miles on the Cassiar Highway.  Although it is a narrow, winding road, it was new scenery. And then a speeding oncoming semi with a flatbed trailer following another speeding truck was part way into our lane and almost took our left mirror off.  I thought for sure our back end would be going into the ditch.  Luckily not.  A sign told us to watch for livestock on the roads and sure enough, minutes later, we saw 2 or 3 horses grazing alongside the road.
Then a copper colored bear with black paws and black hair around its neck, like a collar, eating on the side of the road  quickly scampered into the woods.  He was quite handsome, likely only a year or two old.   Then we spotted a wolf, no a dog, wait...it had a red collar on.  Was it someones dog or was it a collared wolf?

Another bear! And feverishly eating flowers just off the blacktop.  How special is this?  I wished we could have watched it for a few minutes.  Sorry about the dirty window. However, we did stop to snap a picture of Bear Glacier, just before we arrived in Stewart.  Stewart, BC and Hyder, AK are known for incredible scenery, grizzly bears, eagles, glaciers and mountain peaks.

Spawning salmon were splashing like crazy in Fish Creek just a few miles from our campground. We had to drive through Hyder, AK and down one of the dustiest roads I have been on to get to the Tongass National Forest.  The U.S Forest Service has placed a viewing boardwalk for visitors to watch salmon and feeding bear. Just as we were leaving, a bear stood up stream looking at all of us tourists standing on the boardwalk taking pictures.  Another bear came up playfully and jumped on the first bear and both tumbled back into the woods. It was most likely a mother grizzly wanting to teach her young cub to fish. 

As we walked to our car on a second boardwalk LeRoy spotted a black colored bear across the creek.  It walked across the shallow creek, went under the boardwalk (we never heard a sound) we were on and crossed the street (within 10 feet of us) to the woods.  It was huge!  I took a picture of the bears wet footprints on the pavement to show you.

On the return trip it was another stop at Canadian Customs.  Be sure to have your passport.

Once in Stewart, we went on a walking tour of old buildings in the city. We would eat fabulous seafood dinners tonight at the Bitter Creek Cafe. The chef is a gal who lives here and cooks mostly fresh fish dinners. She supports the wild fisheries here and encourages others to do likewise.