The long not boring drive to Hyder AK.

Today we drive south 242 miles from Dease Lake BC to Hyder AK.

This is the area where friends overturned their rig in 2010, and it is on our minds.  The road is barely a lane in each direction, often with sharp drop-offs to drainage ditches.  No center lines most of the way and rarely a warning of frost heaves or broken pavement.  Marcia and I are in the lead.

We have been warned that a bridge was damaged 150 miles south by a construction vehicle, and we can cross only in 15-minute windows at 11, 1, or 3 PM.  By departing at 7:30 AM we hope to make the 1 PM crossing with 45 minutes or so to spare.

The drive is through the usual towering mountains with many lakes at road level, again quite beautiful. 

Because of our early departure we intend breakfast at a place recommended by JJ 50 miles south but cannot find it.  After 75 miles we find a lodge that looks appealing, and it is.  A few other Airstreams are already there.

The dining area is on the back, behind a comfortable entrance with a stuffed moose and a couple stuffed wolves.   The breakfast is delicious and huge and will also serve as our lunch.

The owner is very conversational.  He is a geologist from Vancouver and bought the place in derelict condition five years ago.  It is now in good condition, has a motel section, and a floatplane on the lake.  The first owner was killed in an avalanche, and the second drowned in the lake; he is number three (the charm?).  When he first came here his wife stayed a day and left; now she won’t leave.  Their kids help around the place, and her sister and brother-in-law also help.  He tells us the road south is full of wildlife but to be careful because a new road is being built, and a power line is being extended, probably to Alaska.  He expects his business will boom when the mine opens two miles away in a couple years.  He casually says he bought out all the potential competition. 

After breakfast we continue south with change in the air.  The cotton from the fireweed is blowing like snow against the windshield, and golden leaves are falling from the trees. 

In a few miles traffic is halted briefly and we cross a temporary bridge; the regular bridge washed out not long ago.  We soon encounter long stretches where the trees have been cleared and the rock blasted to make a new roadbed.  I’m following a loaded logging truck but in the cleared areas there are lower-grade trees and brush stacked to make teepee-shaped piles that we really don’t understand; they look too huge – probably 50 feet high -  to be burn piles, and too rough for salvage. 

In one wilder stretch Marcia and I see a black bear amble across the road.  He glances at us then scampers the rest of the way and disappears.  If he had been crossing in the opposite direction we might have hit him.  (Later we learn caravaners on another stretch encountered a road-kill bear cub.)

Traffic again stops as we reach the back-up from the bridge damaged by construction equipment.  This will be at least a 45 minute wait so we all get out, walk about and talk, having a good social time on this beautiful morning.

After quite some time Marcia discretely goes into the trailer to use the facilities; I’m outside and word comes traffic is beginning to move.  I warn her to hurry.  The cars in front of the logging truck start to move and I again holler to Marcia, and she says she is hurrying.  I have visions we are going to hold up many angry drivers.  I holler again and she comes rushing from the trailer and we leap in our truck, and nothing happens.  The gap in front of the logging truck is lengthening but the logging truck is not moving.  I finally get out and go forward, climbing up the rig steps to peer inside; the driver is slouched over, sound asleep.  A loud bang on the window and he jumps up alert as a cat, with his engine running before I can make it back to my truck.  We are again on the move.

As we approach Stewart BC glaciers become visible, a large one coming to our level just across a ravine.  More beauty, and more signs of avalanches and roadwork.

Stewart BC is a small logging town, formerly a mining town.  A marsh extends into the ocean, where we see a freighter being loaded with logs destined probably for China.  Old pilings are everywhere, some of which supported the old town of Hyder Alaska, which burned.  There is an abandoned trestle that looks like it could never have held a train.  Stewart itself has a Petro Canada station, some old general stores and inns, a small market or two, several liquor stores, and a large abandoned railway hotel built in 1908 that seems too weakened to survive the winter snow-load, but there it stands, with a “for sale” sign. 

The border crossing from Canada to the US is at the edge of Stewart, with Hyder AK beginning immediately.  There is a border sign but – don’t tell the bad guys – no border agents into the US.  Not even an official border building that we can see, although Canada has one for traffic in the opposite direction.

Hyder is about 100 people, no school, no local government, no taxes, and practically no economy.  Half the town is derelict.  There is a rolled and long abandoned motorhome on the side of the road.  There are burned down buildings.

The nicest house in Hyder, a family with 13 kids.

We pull in to Camp-Run-A-Muck and get situated; a complicated job as there is little organization to the park, which stretches out in a narrow strip along a creek.  The trees add attractiveness but make jockeying the rigs to park a challenge.  We have water and electric, although as in many parks the electric is weak and our heater can’t keep the chill away at night.  Beautiful mushroom, some quite large; some reportedly hallucinogenic; others deadly poisonous.  Gnats and flies, and mosquitoes.  The owner, an attractive woman from New England with a husband and 17-year-old son, tells us to watch for bears as they are often in camp.   She is delightful and very cheerful.  She stays, she says, because of the beauty and freedoms and environment for her son; the son seems a success, but he is becoming aware there is another world.  Her husband is tiring of the winters.

After practically no dinner we drive 3 miles on a gravel road into the Tongass National Forest to the Fish Creek bear viewing area.  We encounter more Airstreamers than bears, although one bear rustling invisibly in the bushes holds our attention for quite a while.   He finally emerges, crosses the river grabbing and rejecting the occasional dead salmon, before finally keeping one and disappearing into the bushes on the other side of the river.  The salmon spawning season is almost over.  A few very large fish can be seen flailing about, but most are dead.  Nature seems sometimes very wasteful and cruel.