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Deane, Norm, and Kay's Motorcycle / RV Trip to Northern Canada and Alaska | |
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September 20, Iskut, British Columbia to Hyder, Alaska 193 Miles |
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Out of the snow and into rain! During the night it started raining, and by this morning it was raining steadily. So we just loaded up, Norm and I put on our rain gear, and we all started on down Highway 37, the Cassiar Highway. Kay was lucky; she got to stay dry driving the motor home. The Cassiar Highway had a mixture of good and bad road surfaces. It went from quite good pavement to very bad gravel and dirt, to new and excellent pavement. The gravel road was bad especially in that it was very muddy and slick, and had really bad potholes. Thankfully it was only about 12 miles long. But following that, a long section of paved road had bad potholes and loose gravel repair sections. Finally, we hit brand new, widened, well striped, paved road. So the Cassiar has all varieties of quality in its roadbed. Information I had found on road conditions on the Cassiar Highway, when I was planning this trip, is old, inaccurate, and subject to interpretation. So I decided to keep good records on the surface quality and at least be a good source of information for other motorcyclists wanting to ride this highway. Unfortunately, the rain had clouds so low that we didn't get to see much of the extra special scenery that Norm promised us on the Cassiar, having taken a previous trip. Riding the motorcycles 190 miles in rain was not really fun, but we survived, only getting a little wet in the process. The bikes and the motor home were covered with mud, but at our RV park for the night we did at least squirt water on the bikes to remove most of the mud. The motor home will have to wait for a better wash job. We then took a little side trip, to go to Hyder, Alaska and Stewart, British Columbia, both on the coast where Alaska borders BC. The side trip had two goals. First to see the "Salmon Glacier", and second to see if we could find bears eating spawning salmon, to get ready for hibernation.
We didn't get to see the Salmon Glacier because of low clouds and fog, but we did see another glacier, the "Bear Glacier", when coming into the Stewart - Hyder area. It was complete with so called "Bergie Bits", the small pieces that are "calved" and fall into the lake here, but are too small to be called "ice bergs". Hence the name "Bergie Bits". As far as watching bears eating salmon, we didn't get to see them actually catching salmon, but we did see a mother Black Bear taking her cub (maybe a two-year-old) across the road and down to the stream, locally called "Fish Creek", where the salmon were. Along "Fish Creek" the stream in which salmon come up from the sea, there were literally thousands of salmon dead or dying after laying and fertilizing eggs. This is Mother Nature's way. As we sit in the motor home in the evening, it is still raining steadily. We are hoping for better weather tomorrow. |
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