British Columbia – Page 2 – On the road with Jim

Prince George – British Columbia

Be careful what you wish for, it may come true.

It was raining when we left Stewart yesterday. Except for one day in Homer, we’ve had rain every time we’ve visited the coast. There’s a message somewhere in there.

When we left Stewart, we hoped that BC Highway 37 would continue on as a good road, and our hopes were realized. Since the little resort town of Tatogga, the road stopped being a two lane back road and widened enough to make room for the trucks coming out of Stewart with oversize loads. The rest of Hwy 37 to the Canada 16 junction, was noisy chip seal, but wide with a center-line and shoulders. For the two and one half hours we drove, I believe I counted the traffic we passed on one hand.

As we continued south, we began to notice how British Columbia differed from Yukon. Here you don’t get the broad expansive vistas, because the tall trees crowd the road. Besides being taller, we began to see a wider variety of trees, both broad-leaf and conifer mixed together. The mountains were still around us, but we could only catch them between the trees every so often. The drive was relaxing.

When we reached Kitwanga and turned east on the Yellowhead Highway (BC-16), we reentered modern civilization . . . and traffic. There are eight or nine little towns along that road section, each with the annoying 100 Km – 90 Km – 70 Km – 50 Km – 70 Km – 90 Km – 100 Km speed change pattern. They were well-kept cute little towns, some with a stoplight, some only a block long. The houses were clapboard sided one story cottages. After each town, more cars appeared on the road.

We had to get around large RV Riggs coming out of Prince Rupert, because they were going slower than what I had the cruise set at (I’m sorry officer, you mean those signs aren’t in miles per hour?). Least you think I was the speed demon, all the commercial trucks passed us.

We entered Prince George just in time for 4:30 rush hour. The cars packed the highway going in all directions. We missed our turn for the RV park and went past the Wall-Mart and Costco before we could find a place to turn around. The road drops off a bluff and has Jersey barriers in the center. For a moment, I had Pasadena Freeway flashbacks.

We plan to leave in the morning. We’ll start south on Hwy 97 for the two-day trip to Vancouver. After driving the last month in the wilderness, I’m having to relearn how to deal with these people on the road. I’m going to have to do it quick, because I’ve got to get around Seattle, the Bay Area and (shudder) LA. Maybe we should just stay here, it’s a nice enough town, although I’ve been told that most of the town moves to Quartzite for the winter. Or maybe, I should just turn around now, and find one of those abandoned log cabins to live in. All I need is a satellite dish and internet. After all, Amazon delivers anywhere.

Hyder – Alaska

And you thought we left Alaska. Well, we did. Except, we made a side trip to Stewart, which is in British Columbia and Hyder, an Alaska town. They could conceivably be the same town, but there’s an international border in the middle of main street. There is only one way in to Hyder and it’s also the only way out. The US Customs doesn’t even man the border here, only the Canadians do. They really asked us if we bought anything in Hyder, which is funny, because it’s essentially a ghost town with one closed general store.

The tourist attraction of Hyder is the bear observation platform built and maintained by the Forest Service. You’re probably thinking what I had. It’s that place where they filmed the brown bears catching salmon in mid-air. It’s not.

Here, the service has a deck along Fish Creek, where you can watch the salmon make their journey upstream, spawn and die. All of this is very interesting . . . to a fisherman or biologist. Today we saw pink and chum salmon nesting while steel-head kept pestering their courtship.

Salmon Spawning in Fish Creek — A female pink salmon has dug a nest while a couple of courting males wait with anticipation.

Occasionally, a bear will wander on the set, and grab a meal. That’s what gets the tourists excited . . . including us. I admit, I paid five bucks to watch a bear grab a salmon out of the creek. It would have been worth it . . . had one showed up, but we didn’t get the schedule.

Each day, at the ticket window, there is a list of the most recent bear sightings. They start at around 6am and the last one shows up around 10am. Six is when the ticket window opens, so nothing happens before then. Our camp host told us that late in the afternoon was good too, but for the last week, sightings we of bears in the morning. So, when you get here, come early.

An otter scratches his head while resting on a downed pond log.

Disappointed about not seeing bears, we took solace in watching two otters playing in the water. They were tricky to shoot, because every time I got the camera ready, they submerged. I’m glad I’m not shooting film, because I would have wasted two rolls shooting water ripples.

Glacier Detail — Detail of an unknown glacier near Stewart.

The scenery is nice in Misty Fjord, home for this community. A couple of nice glaciers and several waterfalls decorate the mountainsides. The broad leaf trees are at the first stage of turning color and the fireweed seed pods have begun to open, releasing white feathery seeds to the wind. In another week or two, this place will be ablaze in color.

The Bear River runs from the above glacier to the sea, a length of twenty miles, with more water than Phoenix uses annually.

Tomorrow morning we head further south towards Prince George and civilization. It has a Wall-Mart and (be still my heart) a Costco. It’s funny how your priorities change when you’ve been on the road for a couple of months.

Stewart – British Columbia

While we were still in Carcross Sunday, I needed to get up during the night. It seemed pretty dark, but I didn’t really pay much attention, because Queen Anne made some black-out curtains for the windows. As I got back in bed, I peeked through the curtains, and I saw stars in the night sky. I’ll let that soak in for a minute. It was finally dark enough that stars were visible. I don’t know if we were enough south, or that much time has passed since summer solstice, but we’re beginning to have real nights. That does wonders for my sleep.

We hit the road early yesterday and made our way along the Alaska Highway towards Watson Lake. That section of road is in good shape and we made good time. The Canadians are good about putting orange markers along the road sides, indicating the bad sections. Either you slow down or drive on the left side around the road hazard. Since we were the only ones on the road, we could easily maneuver in any lane we chose.

Since I didn’t have to drive a slalom course of potholes, I drove relaxed, and that gave me a chance to look around. I noticed the willow leaves were turning yellow already. This is the beginning of August and fall colors are starting above the 60th parallel. The second thing I noticed was how beautiful the Yukon is. Sparsely dominated by black spruce and willow, where even with a modest grade, we rose above tree line. The mountains, separated by lakes, are not craggy, snow-capped and grandiose, like we’ve seen in Alaska, but they stand tall above the tundra. They also go on forever, range after range for hundreds of miles.

Unless we wanted to go back the way we came, we needed to take another road south, and that was Highway 37, about fifteen miles west of Watson Lake. We originally had planned to stay in the RV camp at that junction, but we had made such good time that we decided to press on. After driving south five miles we crossed the sixtieth parallel into British Columbia.

Have you ever had the feeling that you were sure you’ve made a mistake even though all the signs say you haven’t? That’s Highway 37. On the map it looks like a major road cutting south through upper BC, but through the windshield, it looked like a Kentucky back road. Barely two lanes wide, it cut between the bogs twisting every which way. The speed limit was 48 mph (80km), but only a lunatic would have driven that fast pulling a trailer. It had no center lines and no shoulders. As we drove further, the road began to widen and became what we consider normal. We had almost worked up the nerve to go the speed limit when we had to stop to let a black bear cross in front of us.

We stopped in a dry camp for the night about a hundred miles into BC. A place called Dease Lake. Our camp site was on a bluff overlooking the lake, and the view was so pretty that we broke out the window cleaner and scrubbed the back window so we could enjoy it. We slept the night with the curtains pulled back.

As with every road we’ve been on during this trip, there was the usual construction sites and the dirty mess on the vehicles. This road was full of such projects and by day’s end, The Ritz was carrying ten pounds of mud on the front.

Old Stewart Boarding House — An old building in Stewart Alaska below the glacier towering in the mountains above.

Towards the end of day two and four construction zones later, route 37 finally turned into a real highway with center lines and shoulders. We have another day before we’re done with this road, but tonight we’ve made camp in the town of Stewart. I’ll show you why tomorrow.

Chevy's in Stewart — When was the last time you saw two of these parked on your street?