Stewart Bound

So now it's time to get caught up again, being about 3 days behind on the Blog.  I believe I left you with our camping in Beaumont.  The following morning was still dry, but threatening rain, so we packed up quickly (I hate setting up camp in the rain, but even more so packing up a wet tent) and with a quick breakfast of cereal, coffee (of course) and an orange, we headed out westbound again.
Our drive took us through Houston (BC), which has an open tourism bureau (many don't yet seem to be open yet).  This gave us an opportunity to see the highlights of Houston - a very large (world's largest?) fly fishing rod, and an old silver grinder donated from a sister town in Mexico.  We were also able to get a bit of WiFi, and with it already raining, and forecast for more, we booked a motel room a few hundred km. further west, in South Hazelton. 

Large Fly Rod

Silver Grinder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not only was it raining, but I seemed to be catching a bit of a cold, with a dry cough.  But 45 minutes later we were in Smithers, BC where we had a bite of lunch, picked up some cough drops and groceries, and washed some of the mud off the car at a car wash.  In an hour, we'd gone another 80 km further north and west to our new abode for the eveining, the Cataline Motel in South Hazelton.  Nothing much to write about for the Blog, and I was tired and a bit under the weather....so this entry got missed for the moment.  We did manage to check that the rainy weather would continue, so again we decided to book other-than-camping accommodations for the following night.  Cousins Dave and Kathy had highly recommended that if we took this western route, we should take a side-trip into Stewart.....so we booked the next night for there. 
A short drive west in the morning took us to a fork in the road - continue west into Terrace and Prince Rupert, or turn right (North) to head for the Alaska Highway - our goal - so northbound we went onto Hwy 37.

Turn Right Here

About 25 km. north we went past the aboriginal village of Gitanyow which has a large collection of totems....many over 100 yrs old, and some only 40-50 yrs old.  I'd always thought it was mostly the Coastal nations such as Haida and Kwakiutl, Tlingit who had done this....but apparently not.
Here's a very small sampling:

About 3 hours later, we turned off the main highway 37 to the spur to the south and west, for Stewart.  This town is at the head of the Portland Canal, a 90 mile long inlet (not a man-made canal) which is also the border between BC and Alaska in these parts.  Cousin Dave had suggested that we'd like the scenery, and he was right!  In spite of the rain and cloud, we still had snow-peaked mountains, waterfalls, rushing streams, and glaciers surrounding us.  I even stopped at one of the rushing streams (Stroh Creek) to try my hand at moiling for gold.  It seemed like a good spot for some gold to possibly have been washed down by the adjacent glacier above me and the waterfalls also all around.  We did manage to pan a bit of colour in the sand/gravel - it remains to be seen if any of it is gold.  By early afternoon we'd arrived in Stewart - a bit early to check into our new home, the King Edward Hotel.  So we drove to the end of town, and crossed into Alaska at Hyder.  There is no border guard here for going into the US, but one for the way back.  we had lunch at the Glacier Inn, which is famous for "Hyderizing" people (special drink with ceremony and certificate).  Lunch was good, and since I was still driving, decided not to get Hyderized.  Instead, we continued on the road another 24 km. to view the Salmon Glacier.  The rainclouds actually accommodated us by parting for a bit of a view before closing in on us again.  Back at Stewart, we took a short walk on a boardwalk which juts out from the end of town into the Portland Canal, and around the river estuary.  Then a check-in at the hotel, a short visit to the town museum to find out about mining, and a dinner in the pub.  We found that many of our pictures had not turned out, and one of our 2 cameras is toast.  And we were both beat....so no Blog entry for this, until now.

King Edward Hotel, Stewart BC

Bear Glacier

Moiling for Gold below a glacier

So that's enough for one Blog entry.  I'll continue on with today's entry after this one gets published, and you can be all up-to-date with our travels.