August 07, 2018
Woke up this morning at 5am to the smell of smoke, thinking … ‘Why would my camping neighbour be having a fire this early in the morning and when there is a ban on fires?’ I went back to sleep and later on when I got up and out of the tent, the sky looked quite ominous. The smell of smoke was everywhere and turned out to be the smell of a forest fire, not a campfire.
As I made my way to Stewart-Hyder, the smoke was getting thicker and in some places it was like a blanket of fog that I was driving through. I only made a couple of stops for taking photo’s because of the smoke and the grey cloudy sky, it was not the greatest photo opportunity, even though some of the spots looked like they would be incredible scenic shots if weather was different.
I stopped in Dease Lake to fuel up and asked them where the fire was. I was informed that it was all around Dease Lake. It turns out that they had shut down this highway yesterday for most of the day.
As soon as I drove passed Iskut, the sky cleared and the smoke was not as prominent. By the time I reached Meziadin Junction the sky was almost clear of clouds and no smoke. Driving down to Steward, there were some beautiful scenery along this road. I stopped at a couple places, but thought I better get a place to stay before they fill up.
It was 2pm and I found out there were only 2 campgrounds in the area as the municipal campground in Stewart was closed for renovations. I quickly drove over to Hyder and he only had 3 spots left … I quickly took one.
After getting set up, I headed back over towards Stewart and had to stop at a border crossing. Hyder is in Alaska and when you go down to Hyder there was no border crossing, but when you cross back over to Stewart there is a Canadian Border crossing. The border patrol lady, asked me where I was from and then we joked about going into Hyder was not an issue, but was surprised at the crossing coming back. She said, “Sometimes we don’t let people back” … I looked at her in surprise and she smiled and said she was joking. Completely caught me by surprise … too funny. LOL
I drove back up on to the Steward-Cassiar highway about 35km to get some photo’s as it was just so beautiful. My first stop was at Bear Glacier. From the pull-off, you can see the small lake and the glacier had a nice blue tinge to it.
After making a few other stops along the highway back to Stewart, I stopped into the Information Center and received a nice description of a self-driving tour with a list of all the highlights. Places I would visit tomorrow.
I then made my way to Fish Creek Bear Observation Deck. I paid $5.00 to hopefully see bear eating salmon. After waiting here for 5 hours, there was only a quick bear cub siting and also a wolf trying to catch a salmon. I went to take a photo, but there were too many people in the way. After 8:30pm, I was not enjoying this experience so I headed back to my campsite. Thought I would call it a night.