Travels With Ruby: Glaciers, Bears & Wildfires, Oh My

Our plan upon leaving the Yukon was to head down the Stewart-Cassiar Highway. There are some interesting things to see along here, plus then I wouldn't have to drive the same stretch of the Alaska Highway again. So we turned off the Alaska Highway, somewhat thrilled to be leaving the land of frost heaves, only to be stopped at a roadblock because of a wildfire that was burning pretty much right along the Cassiar. We had arrived 5 minutes late and would have to wait for the next pilot car. So we did, and it was quite an experience to be piloted through a basically active wildfire area. We couldn't stop, for obvious safety reasons, so our only pictures are kinda blurry due to the motion of the car. It is definitely eerie to see a forest like this:

But I saw forests in Yellowstone only 5 years after fire, and it is definitely true that they grow back quickly. Hopefully that will happen here as well.

One the main reasons to take the Cassiar Highway is that it provides many, many opportunities to see black bear, as you can see:

This momma and her cubs were my favorite, but we didn't get much time to observe them because this big old truck came barreling down the road honking his horn and scaring them off.

Another reason to take the Cassiar is that it also enables you to visit what is probably one of the most isolated towns in the US: Hyder, AK. It is only accessible by road through the slightly more populated Stewart, BC and is so far removed from the rest of the US that it uses Pacific time (instead of Alaskan) and Canadian schools money. (You still have to go through customs, though). The main attraction here is the Fish Creek Viewing Platform run by the US Forest Service. This area is officially part of Tongass National Forest.

Everyone goes and stands on that platform and then the bears come and catch salmon in the creek. We didn't see any bears in the creek (bummer) but we did see tons of salmon doing their spawning thing.

We also got our first good look at the temperate rain forest, which produces massive trees that you find pretty much halfway down the Pacific Coats. They are just so beautiful and majestic.

Another thing you can do here, which is according to Lonely Planet USA is "totally worth the trip," is drive to Salmon Glacier, which is purportedly the largest glacier in the world accessible by road. The forest service ranger assured us that it was a lovely, hour-long drive. Now, I had already known the road was about 17 miles long. You think I would have put those two pieces of information together and realized something was amiss, but no, I just accepted the road guide she handed me and off we went on our merry way. The first views along the drive were beautiful.

Um, until I looked down and happened to notice just how high above the valley we'd gotten.

And these people clearly have a different definition of "maintained road" than I, because my idea of maintenance involves more than one lane, seal coat (at a minimum) and guard rails. But it was too late to turn around, so we soldiered.....er, snailed?....on.

It was probably one of the scariest things I have ever done, but it was kind of one of those no-turning-back-now moments (especially since I'm lucky to do K turns when there are four lanes and the worst that can happen is you bump someone's mailbox). The view at the top, though incredibly buggy, was so worth it. I guess the Lonely Planet writers weren't just being cliche after all.