When we awoke in the morning the sun was
shining and the air was fresh. We headed toward Stewart. There are several glaciers in route to
Stewart.
Bear Glacier is a beautiful
site to see. It curls down between 2
mountains, which is the case of most all glaciers, with the exception of rock
glaciers. We didn't know that there were so many different types of glaciers! There are 7 different kinds: tidewater, hanging, cirque, piedmont, valley,
mountain and rock. And, we've seen them
all!
We arrived at Stewart, a small town of
about 700 people. Stewart is in Canada and Hyder is located in Alaska about 3
miles away, along the inter-coastal area. We stopped by the visitor’s center and got the
local skinny and proceeded on to Hyder. Bob was supposed to have a conference call and
we had hoped to have phone service in Stewart since we hadn't had it for 3
days. No such luck, neither Stewart or
Hyder have cell phone service.
There is a bear watching platform just
outside of Hyder that was constructed in 2001.
Hyder is one of the few areas where you can
observe the brown bears feasting on the salmon that are spawning is the shallow
fresh water streams. We stopped by and took a look but there were no bears
there at that time, so we headed up to Salmon River glacier.
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| No bears here today |
The Salmon River
glacier is approximately 23 miles from the bear watching area. It is 23 miles of gravel road twisting and turning
up the mountain side. The road is the by product from the old mines that were
in the mountain side. It is still well maintained
and there are many turnouts for sightseeing.
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| Old mine tunnels |
The Salmon River Glacier is the largest
glacier you can drive right up next to. It is a site to behold. We are very fortunate to have taken the time
to see it. We will not even attempt to
describe the beauty and awesomeness of the glacier and surrounding mountains. One becomes very humble when standing
overlooking the vast beauty and creation before you.
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| Salmon glacier coming down from icefield, branching off to the left and right |
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| Little ice castle here |
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| Left leg of the glacier |
 |
| this is a hole along the glacier |
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| Looking down over the right leg of the glacier |
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| flowing from left to right, calving and breaking off |
This is the last glacier we will
visit before departing the great northwest territory, and what a way to cap it
off!!
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