Gone Fishing!

Randy with the huge bank of Jade by the roadside

 The next stop on my list was Hyder which surprised me as I found it hiding in a remote corner of Alaska! However the ride to get there saw me continuing along the Cassiar Highway from Boya Lake and past Jade City and Dease Lake. A few miles south of Jade City I pulled over to speak with a Harley rider I had spotted crouching by his bike. He didn’t have a problem though, he was just sorting through the rocks at the roadside which had been left by recent roadworks. As I approached he exclaimed in amazement, “This is all Jade!”. Looking around I could certainly see a green hue to the embankment and after a bit of scratching around I came up with two rather nice small rocks to take with me as souvenirs. Randy on the other hand selected space to carry… well not without throwing out some of the various junk I was already carrying. As we rode off I dropped into line astern of Randy and so together we travelled down to Meziadin Junction, the turn for Hyder, where after saying our farewells I headed straight on for Stewart whilst Randy turned left towards Smithers and the South.

Something you don't see in the UK!

A Helicopter refueling at a roadside Gas Station

The sky was rather overcast as I ran along the Stewart / Hyder cut off but that didn’t detract from the spectacular scenery. I never realised that Canada had so many glaciers; the Bear Glacier, which was by far the biggest on this short run, also amazed me by having it’s foot right down at about 1300 ft! Yes, feet not metres! It really didn’t feel cold enough to allow either the ice of the glaciers or indeed the large snow fields which were by the road side, to stay frozen. It was only about 60km from the junction down to Stewart and just a short hop then on to Hyder where I crossed the border once more into Alaska, although surprisingly, there were absolutely no US border formalities as I crossed, only a small sign indicated the change of country. I thought I’d have a bit of a look around before heading for a camp ground so carried on straight up the main road through the tiny town. There were a couple of gift shops, a motel, an RV camp ground and that was about it other than a few private homes.

As I left the urbanisation behind and ran up the only road in town I spotted a viewing platform on my right with a few vehicles parked up. As it was right by the river which I had followed out of town, I stopped to see what it was about. I was amazed to see that without really trying I had found the bear viewing walkway, and even more surprised to find that I had arrived at more or less the right time to actually see the bears. I parked the bike, paid my $5 and joined the milling throng who were awaiting the appearance of local grizzlies for their evening meal of fresh caught salmon; it was a long wait! I learnt that the bears usually dine somewhere between 6 and 9pm; I had arrived at 5.30pm… well, no, in fact I New Zealand which helped to pass the time and to take my mind off my increasing discomfort.

The salmon wait, unaware of their impending fate!

had arrived at 4.30pm, the time zone had changed yet again as I had crossed the border. I wished that I had set up camp first; and eaten; and visited the loo! Oh well! Sure as eggs is eggs, if I left now the bears would arrive early so I waited, and waited, and waited! People came and went, the walkway filled up, emptied and filled again. As people left I slowly edged towards the far end of the platform, ever hopeful that that was where the bears would emerge from. The salmon were certainly plentiful, blissfully unaware, or so it seemed, of their impending fate. In the 100 yards or so of river in front of us we were told there were around 2500 salmon, enough to feed a whole army of hungry bears, but still we waited. I got into conversation with a young couple from from New Zealand which helped to pass the time and to take my mind off my increasing discomfort.

Then suddenly all chatter was stilled as a huge old Grizzly shambled out of the forest and made his way up river towards us. Camera shutters went into melt-down. If we were still using film instead of being digital, Kodak would have made millions from just those first few seconds of “Bear Mania”. As I’ve found with all the other bears that I’ve seen over here our start of the show seemed completely oblivious of his rapturous audience as he worked his way through the now frantic, seething mass of salmon, searching for his prime supper morsel. It didn’t tale long before he had selected his first course and pounced as expertly as any match fisherman, coming up with a huge fish in his powerful jaws; there was no escape! He headed for the bank and sat contentedly chewing on his first catch. As he later headed back for seconds, another, much younger, bear arrived to see what was happening. He was soon sent packing by the old bear; he really didn’t want any competition for his supper.

I spent about an hour watching, fascinated, as the old bear caught salmon after salmon. It was a very wasteful meal with half eaten fish left scattered hither and thither along the banks to be cleaned up by the bald eagles and crows. Eventually, nature got the best of me and I headed off. It was also starting to get dark, something that I had forgotten about having spent the last couple of weeks in the land of the midnight sun! However, it had been well worth the ride down from the Cassiar Highway to this tiny corner of Alsaka. I camped up by the ranks obscenely huge RV’s, feeling much as an ant must feel as he runs around the feet of an elephant in my tiny envelope of nylon, cooked dinner and retired to bed well pleased with my day.