Bear Count: 10
Moose Count: 3
Seal Count: 30
Hi everyone! It has been quite a long time since we last checked in for which there are some reasons that we won’t go into here. Let’s just say that after a brief hiatus from the itinerary by Keoma, we are back online, so buckle your safety belts by inserting the flat part into the metal fitting, tighten them snugly around your hips by pulling on the strap, and let’s go.
We last left you as we were steaming away from the beautiful islands of Haida Gwaii in the comfort of our BC Ferries cabin and heading back to Prince Rupert to return to the mainland and our northward trek. As we were sitting in the ferry line up in Skidegate on Haida Gwaii we noted a significant number of passengers that were boarding with coolers laden with freshly caught fish. Like, a lot of coolers. One couple had about four of them. Being that the chinook/king/spring salmon fishery is pretty much closed, we were most curious as to the species of the cooler dwellers that were making their way to people’s freezers on the mainland. As luck would have it, our curiosity was partly satisfied as we struck up a conversation with the couple next to us over some surprisingly good eggs benedict from the ferry’s commissary. Mmmm….drooling thinking about eggs benedict now. Ahem. Back to the thread of the story. Our table neighbours from the Prince George area (which were the ones that we noted had the numerous coolers) were returning with halibut, coho/silver salmon and ling cod and Bill was jealous.
All of this talk of fishing sparked a hankering for some good seafood chowder so after washing a couple of loads of laundry back on dry land and some asking of questions we set out to find Dolly’s Fish Market in Prince Rupert which was rumoured to be the place of choice for chowder. The really good news is that it has rightfully earned its reputation. More than once we have found that places (wineries and restaurants for the most part) that are highly recommended don’t always live up to expectations and we leave feeling a bit “meh”. Dolly’s was not that place. Bill had a smoked halibut seafood chowder and Keoma had a halibut sandwich and both were off the charts. As we were waiting for our food to come, Bill wandered into the fish shop side of things to check out their offerings and he ran into 4 fellows that he knows from his previous work in Calgary, Weird, right? Of all the fish shops in all the world…Afterwards, we wandered around the shops in the pier area and picked up a fantastic turned birch wooden bowl by a local artist for a hugely bargain price. We spotted similar bowls for four times that price later in the trip. Why would one buy a wooden bowl when one is traveling around with their life in a trailer? Because one needs some place to store their fruit in an artful way, that’s why.
We probably could have used one less day in Prince Rupert, but when Keoma was booking our RV spot she anticipated that we would need a break between Haida Gwaii and the road in order to get re-organized. That break wasn’t really needed, but we took advantage of it by going out into the rain and heading to the North Pacific Cannery National Historic Site to learn about that vital cog in the British Columbia and coastal economic wheel – the catching and canning of salmon. From 1889 to 1981 the North Pacific Cannery, operated by different companies at different times, accounted for more than 25 percent of BC’s salmon pack and was the largest packer of sockeye salmon in the world. The site has both preserved buildings such as the net loft where First Nations women and children created and mended fishing nets to recreated residences where families would spend the season together working at different jobs in the plant. Bill was intrigued by the mechanical operations including the canning line and fishing methods and Keoma was fascinated by the social structure of the temporary community that was segregated into housing and work for their different cultures. Great way to spend a wet afternoon so long as one is dressed for the weather.
Touristing around Prince Rupert complete, we hit the road to head to the north country. After a brief stop at Canadian Tire in Terrace to pick up a compact air compressor to keep the trailer tires inflated to a legal level and for Bill to pick up some fishing paraphernalia not found back in Calgary we headed north on the Cassiar Highway. This particular stretch of road is a cut off highway to make getting to the Alaska Highway more accessible from the west coast. Our friends from the ferry had suggested that we detour off of the main drag to go 65 Km west to Stewart / Hyder due to the scenery of the drive and the view of the Salmon Glacier. We decided that we would give it a go. The initial plan was to stay in a campground on the Cassiar Highway, but with plenty of daylight and still some driving energy left, Bill suggested that we head right to Stewart and see what we see and if we didn’t like it we could head back out to the initially planned campground. We stayed for two nights in Stewart. Stewart and Hyder are what you might call sister communities that straddle the British Columbia and Alaska border at the end of that previously mentioned 65 Km road and at the head of a 33 Km fjord called the Portland Canal. It seems like it may be inland, however it is most definitely tidal. The slopes on the drive in are so steep that there are 72 avalanche runs. 72 AVALANCHE RUNS IN 65 KM! There is a reason that many of the folks that we talked to love it there, but beetle out for the winter. We cannot extol enough about the absolutely breathtaking scenery of both the drive in and the location of the town(s).
Literally steal your breath breathtaking. We pulled over and oohed and aahed at the Bear Glacier that was just along the side of the road because it was beautiful and accessible.
This accessible point is important for later on in the Stewart/Hyder story. We set up camp in a beautiful and mostly deserted RV park and sat and gazed at the wonder around us. Also, it wasn’t raining so yay! The following morning, we called a small tour operator and fishing charter company called Wild Northern Adventures to see if they were running any tours that day and low and behold, they told us to meet them at their dock at 11:00 AM.
And do you know what? It was just Bill and I on the boat named Micah, with our captain and the boat’s owner Shawn. We really REALLY love having things to ourselves so we were practically giddy. Shawn toured us around the Portland Canal for about three hours telling us stories about the area and about the time he had a group of company executives out fishing and they came across a sow grizzly with two cubs about to have a run in with a male and after watching the situation develop for 50 minutes the fishermen decided they wanted to fish and not watch Wild Kingdom play out. This had happened a couple of years ago and Shawn was still incredulous at their decision to leave the grizzly action. We didn’t spot any bears, but we saw a ridiculous number of eagles and about 30 seals which made us pretty happy.
After our boat tour, we took to the road and decided that we would try the highly touted halibut and chips at ‘The Bus’ on the Hyder, Alaska side of things. See the Featured Image of this post. No passport needed to get there, but one was needed to get back to the Canadian side, so if you ever go – bring your passport. The fish and chips were made in an old school bus that was gutted and had a commercial kitchen installed inside. The owner was having trouble getting in and out as the door was still smashed from when the bears got in last summer and made a giant mess. She categorized the losses of food including all of the fish, the deep fryer grease and rounded the list out with “and six cake mixes” which seemed to miff her the most of all. Whatever the damage done, the food was really yummy and really fresh. It was fun to just sit outside and enjoy its historical significance as a food truck for Hollywood actors during filming of such shows as The Thing, Insomnia and Eight Below (plus others not appearing here). As we ate we decided that we would drive up to the Salmon Glacier to partake in the scenery that we had been hearing about from a few different people. The road is described as a service road and the glacier is at the top of it at mile 37.
Well, Here’s the thing. It is indeed a service road, however what we failed to discern from descriptions of the drive is that it is a very winding single lane gravel road without guard rails that services precariously positioned mine sites at the tops of mountains.
Vertigo began to set in at about mile 31 and we found ourselves physically leaning our bodies into the mountain and not able to actually look out over the valley floor and glacier that we were approaching. Our peripheral vision told us that it was likely a stunning vista. After twice rounding turns and having to skirt rock slides by driving with two wheels over the edge of the mountain and running into snow deep enough to warrant four-wheel drive on Casper, we agreed that we’d had enough splendour and it was time to head back down using a 77 point turn.
The upside is that we saw two grizzly bears on the road back down. Crazy buggers.
We capped off our stay in Stewart with a visit to the small but wonderful Stewart Museum. There Bill peppered the lovely curator with questions about mining in the area and she was very, very up to the challenge. She was a smart cookie but looked upon us with disdain because we didn’t go all the way up to the top of Salmon Glacier. We were pretty ok with underachieving.
Back to the Cassiar Highway and the continuation of our re-enactment of Johnny Horton’s North to Alaska we hit the road and headed for our next stop for the night at Dease Lake, BC.
On our way through, we made a stop at Jade City where they mine, craft and sell relatively rare jade and act as central point for the TV Discovery Channel series Jade Fever . Some of the works were very impressive so we left with a tiny jade bear with a tiny jade salmon in it’s mouth. We made it to our next campground which is called Waters Edge because it sits right on the shore of twenty-mile-long Dease Lake and though it didn’t have water hookups or potable water on-site, it had a boat launch. Due to that boat launch we spent two nights enjoying it and were able to get the kayaks wet with a four hour paddle up and down the shore. Bill set up his fishing rig to troll for lake trout, Keoma tried to tag along as the photo documenter and spotter and…ta dah! Bill’s first fish of the season was caught in the form of a decent sized lake trout.
He had a couple of hits after that, including one that stole both his lure and the weight that went with it which prompted words best not set down in writing. All in all, another very satisfactory surprise.
As we pulled out of Dease Lake, it was Keoma’s turn to learn to drive the unit. It was shortly after that when the road deteriorated to a single lane with no lines, patched with sections of mud and gravel, vehicle eating pot holes and with a twisting and winding grade so steep that one semi-truck was lying in a recent heap crashed onto its side at the bottom of one particularly nasty hill. More words followed and then Bill noticed in the rear-view mirror that the wheels on the rear RV trailer axle had an unusual camber to them that clearly should not be there. We pulled over, the unit was inspected and the results were not good.
This time, there were no words. There was a whole 90 minutes of angry no words as Bill re assumed the helm and we sweated and worried, and limped into Whitehorse. Once we were arrived at our reserved RV Park, we were able to determine that indeed the axle was bent and indeed both back tires had worn badly on the inside rim as a result.
We used a lifeline and garnered the help of a friend via text (you know who you are) for helpful suggestions and a course of action was determined for the morning. We limped the unit back out of the RV Park which was really a shame as Bill had performed a nearly impossible park job to get into our site and we hit Fireweed RV Repair . Diagnosis? Badly bent rear axle. Prescription? Park the unit in the spot beside the shop with full electrical, water and sewer hook ups and they would put it up on blocks to remove the wheels and axles to be replaced with new heartier manufactured axles (sched 80 rather than sched 40 in-kind steel axle replacements – yep both).
Okey Dokey then. Will do. Not the most picturesque camp site that we have run across, but we were relieved to have the fix underway.
Ditching the problem child, we unhitched the truck and went to the McBride Museum in Whitehorse and spent the afternoon feeling a little chagrined about our “problems” as we learned about a surveyor who came west a hundred and fifty years ago and, on foot and horseback, surveyed the Yukon Territory and much of Alaska and the state of Washington sporting a painful spinal deformity and physical condition that made it difficult for him to even get around. Right. Puts things in perspective.
We also saw the cabin of Sam McGee (from the poem by Robert Service – The Cremation of Sam McGee) who was not in fact from Tennessee and who was in fact very much alive for years following the writing of the poem.
They had a taxidermy diorama of all northern animals and large birds plus a whole floor on the building of the engineering marvel that is the Alaska Highway by the US Army Corps of Engineers. We knew bits and pieces about it, but wow. Just wow.
It was an absolutely stunning museum. We spent hours there. On to dinner at a restaurant that was featured on You Gotta Eat Here! for some namesake Klondike Salmon and Ribs. Bill said that the salmon was exceptional and the portions were huge. We didn’t have room for dessert which was unfortunate as thinking about how that bread pudding looked is causing regret.
After our first night at camp “RV on Blocks” Bill had to take Keoma to the airport to catch a flight due to a family emergency and that is where we leave you for now. Bill will pick up the thread and tell you all about his solo week on the road including the continuation of his quest to golf in every province, territory and state that we pass through.
Until then, we bid you adieu and we thank you for taking the time to share in our adventures.