NORTH TO ALASKA 2025- DAY 80 - STEWART BC. HYDER AK & KITWANGA RV PARK

We woke up early and Hyder, Alaska. We know it's going to get hot later on in the day.  We felt that we better get a start on our traveling before the temps start jumping up.

The Eagle Shadow Campground in Hyder was a pleasant spot to stay for the night. They even had a cute little gift shop that I was able to pick up a few things, including some homemade jam from their daughter.

https://www.eagleshadowcampground.com/

We packed up and headed towards town. We thought perhaps if we went over by the harbor one more time, we might be able to see another orca?

It was also a great spot to stop and make some breakfast... We drove on out into the harbor of the Portland Canal. The tide was out and it looked totally different than when we were there yesterday.

What a great view from our 

Winnebago View!

As we sat, sipping our cups of coffee, we were looking out at views like this. You sure can't beat it for atmosphere, can you?

I'm really hesitant to leave today. I feel like I would like to stay longer in Hyder and explore the area more. I feel a bond with this place. I am not sure why. Everything I look at almost seems familiar in my eyes, though I've never been here before. It is "comfortable". 

We could hear the birds calling, and I could see why they built the walking pier all through the area where Portland City used to be. What a great area for birdwatchers.  It was early enough in the morning that we could open up all of the windows and have the fresh salty air blowing in as we started making our breakfast.

A slight mist was rolling off the surface of the water. It was calm and peaceful. I think the temperature difference between the ocean water and the humid air was creating its own little misty clouds on the surface.

Every now and then a little waft of breeze would blow and fluff the clouds up off the surface of the water. It was like the ocean was making its own clouds. Imagine that?

Sadly, we didn't see any orcas. But the water was smooth as glass which I think is a really unusual circumstance here. As the tide was flowing out, the calmness left behind was in its own way peaceful. Like after a storm. 

I think this is one of my favorite photos below. 

I really like seeing the terrain that is hiding underneath the water when the tide goes out. I think I mentioned this back when we were out at Homer on The Spit. It's like seeing the secret underworld that only the fish get to see. It's giving us a glimpse of life underwater when the tide rolls it back to expose it to the open sky.

We watched some of the wispy clouds move up and over the mountains. There was a slight breeze and it looked to be a beautiful day. But the weathermen were saying it was going to be muggy in the high '80s. That just didn't seem comfortable to us. So yes, I guess it was time to move on.

Sadly, we drove out of Hyder towards the border. This is all that marks the international border between the United States and Canada, besides the actual border crossing office.

A very pleasant young man just asked us one or two questions. He handed us back our passports and told us to have a wonderful trip. This is probably the easiest border crossing we have ever done!

Once we got over onto the British Columbia side, there was a welcome sign. But there wasn't a spot for a "sticker board" like at many of the other borders into and out of British Columbia. So we didn't put a sticker anywhere. But we know we were there. I guess we didn't need a sticker to commemorate that.

As we drove upwards into Stewart, British Columbia, There was one more stop I wanted to make. I had seen this beautiful jacket yesterday and decided that yes, I wanted it. It was a woven wool blend jacket that isn't garish or loud like some of the other Northern Themed jackets I had seen in various shops. I liked the soft muted colors, they reminded me of things that we have seen in Alaska...

The soft peachy color of the spawning salmon. 

The beige tan color of the great grizzly. 

The dark black of the smaller black bears. 

The browns of the moose and the caribou. 

And the soft grays of the rabbits... 

Perfect to match with the very comfortable gray rabbit fur mukluks I bought in Alaska.

This wasn't just an article of clothing, it was going to be a souvenir for me. And it just happened to be in my size!

I love the little leather emblem on the front, not too big. It depicts two of my favorite towns that we had seen on this entire trip. Stewart BC and Hyder AK.

I love how beautifully it's woven together and the fibers are surface combed to a soft luscious texture.

This is going to be a coat for me to wear for many years. I like the firmly buttoned cuffs that will keep the air out when I ride on the e-bike. I like the nice deep pockets, and the thick heavy warmth of this jacket. It will be perfect for this fall! And maybe even worn in the winter months with a sweater underneath.

After I picked that up, and a few other groceries at the little grocery shop next door, it was time to really hit the road. We had lollygagged around all morning out at the harbor hoping to see another orca. But we really should get on the road because it looked like the temperatures were going to get horribly hot inland. They were looking in the high '80s and low '90s. Ugh! 

We started back on the Glacier Highway up through Bear Canyon. There was some road work going on. We had seen this on the way down and Steve was really interested in the process. So I tried to film the whole thing. On the way down it got goofed up. So now on the way back I videoed the entire process and it is on the video link down below. 

Steve figured out that it was much too far for them to haul dump trucks full of hot asphalt to get into such a narrow small road with very little access. Instead their machinery actually cooks up the asphalt right then and there on the road itself. There are large propane tanks on some of the machinery that heat up the ingredients that create the asphalt. It is mixed up right there on the prepared road surface,  and channeled down onto the dirt in lumpy strips. Then other machinery comes over and spreads it smooth and finally a roller at the end to get a perfectly flat surface. Then they even get the stripes painted on it before they are done! 

The one thing we noticed in British Columbia that was this absolutely adorable sign after you are inconvenienced by driving through their horrible road construction.  Look what those nice Canadian people do? They put up a "thank you" sign!

Much better than a sign that just says "End Construction" like we have in the United States. 

We drove on a little further through Bear Canyon. I was really excited to see Bear Glacier from my side of the vehicle! On the way down I was trying to snap photos through Steve's side. That's rather difficult when he's concentrating on intricate driving maneuvers through road construction. It just happened that the road construction work was going on just about the area where the glacier was. So we only had a small amount of time to get through and then keep following the pilot car. We pulled off a little bit, as much as we could, and snap snap snap a few photos. I was so glad with my long distance lens that I could pull in the features of the glacier...

Just look at that!

It's sad to know how rapidly they are receding, and it's really messing up the balance between winter and summer. So much climate change and global warming has dried up a lot of Canada. Without sufficient snow melt and rainfall, the wildfires and smoke are taking their toll on everybody. 

The waters from the melting ice of what's called the "toe" of the glacier and fill this lake down below.   Only a short 100 years ago there was no lake. The glacier extended completely across the valley. There was no road, and the only way to travel through here was by dog sled or ice cleats on your boots.

I'm glad that we got to see a glacier up this close. I wonder if by the time my grandchildren are as old as we are, will they travel to Alaska? Will they be able to see any glaciers?

At this point, so close to the ocean, the rivers were raging from the past 4 or 5 days of rain. We stopped by this little creek to admire the view and watch the turbulent water churning it's way down over the rocks.

We got back on the road and soon made it past the road construction. The canyon walls were absolutely gorgeous. On the way in we had some rain, but now on the way out, we had some really pretty weather.  The dark textures of the rocks stood out in contrast against all of the soft greens of the trees and shrubbery.

Up ahead, as our view cleared some of the trees, we could see the beautiful mountains in the distance. Sad to say though, the telephone lines had to spoil my photo. I don't do any Photoshop or retouching of my photos to remove something like that. So I guess it is what it is. Telephone lines and power poles just have to be part of the scenery. Sorry!

One area we had come across were five different waterfalls crashing down this huge embankment of mountains and rocks. We had driven straight towards them and then took a quick right which then we could follow along the entire bank. It really was very pretty. It is also on the video link down below.

Like I already mentioned, with all of the rainfall, the rivers seem to be at their highest. Their flow was crashing and churning against the banks and overflowing in some areas. The light flickering across the top surface messed with the camera settings and white balance for proper exposure. But I think the effect was really cool even if it wasn't metered properly within the camera settings.

After we turned the corner to drive along the row of waterfalls, I leaned back to take one more picture as we left this beautiful canyon. I'm not sure when I will come this way again.

The ice in the crevices might be left over from during the winter, or maybe it's from the fresh snow that they had just got in a short time ago. I am not sure. But it makes a beautiful striking contrast to the rocks and the moss and the trees around it.

We were very fortunate to have a blue sky day, and this interesting streak of clouds I think was formed from the rising mists and vapors hitting the hot UV of the sun overhead.

It really made for some interesting cloud formations across the sky. But the temperatures were climbing and we knew the further we got up in the mountains, the cooler it might be.

We worked our way back out of the Glacier Highway and back onto the Cassiar. It was time to head further south and hopefully find a campground with electrical hookups. 

By this time it was getting pretty hot. We had the dash air on in the motorhome but we also had started the generator and ran the rooftop air from the camping portion to supplement the dash AC.  The dog is normally riding on the love seat and we also would like to keep it comfortable in the rear portion. That way, when we stop, the roof air isn't having to work so hard to cool everything down again. 

We drove on down the rest of the Cassiar Highway until we reached the town of Kitwanga. Sadly, this is the end of the Cassiar. We will now be joining the Yellowhead Highway.  Things are appearing much more populated and definitely more chain stores and billboards dotting the landscape. Gone is the remote and wild British Columbia terrain. Now we will be looking at alternating rural and urban stretches along a busy highway.

We were extremely fortunate to find an electric hookup campsite at the Kitwanga River RV Park. The temp was at 88° and it was humid and it was not pleasant to be boondocking.

https://kitwangarivercampground.com/

We pulled in and got one of their sites up on the top of the hill. There were other sites down below that were closer to the town that were full hookups. The ones up on the hill were electric and water. That was fine with us, there were trees overhead to shade us from the blistering heat.

Yep, it was close quarters for sure. But that was okay, just about everyone was staying inside of their rigs in their air conditioning. So I guess it really didn't matter how close together we were parked. But it really didn't give us much of a view out our front windshield now did it?

But I'm not complaining. Not really. Off to one side we had a beautiful view of a mountain. Nobody came and camped in that site overnight, so we had a nice view out of our side and rear windows. So it wasn't as bad as I'm making it sound. We really needed the electrical hookup, and that made it worth it.

Zooming in with my camera, look at all that beautiful cold ice on top of those mountains. I would really like to have a breeze blowing down on me into the valley from those snowy ridges.

Even Nick looked like he was ready to melt off of the love seat and slide down onto the floor. But actually, it was 72° inside when we stopped.

Steve did manage to set up the grill and cook outside on the picnic table. That was much better than having to cook indoors and raise the temperature anymore than it needed to be. 

We settled in for the night, and we were thankful that we had this little campsite to pull into.

Here's the video link 

 that goes with today's blog:

140 miles traveled today 

6,924 miles traveled so far