When we picked the RV up from San Francisco, apart from the fact that the fuel was nearly on empty, we were also told that there was no equipment to change a tyre and if we got a flat we needed to ring someone and they would change it! Now this seemed a little odd, when we were travelling around 5000kms in a fairly isolated part of the world, with very, very limited phone range (none in Canada!!). When we mentioned this to Walmart Frank he wasn't surprised and said all you do is ring 911 as it is an emergency and don't try and change it yourself as it is very difficult. This all seemed very strange to us and unbelievably we went along with it. I am happy to say so far we have been very fortunate not to have got a flat and tomorrow we are buying everything we need to put the spare on and will be fully refunded.
The reason I write this is we took Hwy 37A to a place called Stewart which is even more isolated than everywhere else we have been. I was feeling a bit reluctant due to the tyre issue and I am happy to say we did it and it was so worth it!! Stewart is about 90kms off the main highway and there is one road in and the same road out.
The first amazing sight we came across was Bear Glacier. Unfortunately the only place to pull over was near the "Avalanche Area" sign, but it was so worth the risk of being taken out by an avalanche, just to see it!!
We arrived at Stewart mid morning with the thought of spending the night there, doing our washing, refilling our water supply, emptying our grey water, and catching up on some Wifi usage. We didn't realise how small the place would be and it didn't take too long to see most of it,
but it was surrounded by huge mountains, forests, glass like lakes, a tidal estuary
and was so peaceful and quiet. It's main industry is logging and maybe tourism in the summer months. One of the main reasons we decided to visit Stewart was it borders Southern Alaska and there is only one town, Hyder, you can cross into...again, one road in and same road out. We were really excited about seeing Alaska for the first time so made the crossing over...basically we just kept driving on the same road!
The town was old, pretty much uninhabited, a bit "wild west"
...but it had a little fishing jetty and parking lot...and the views there were unbelievable.
There were mountains all around us with waterfalls starting from the top, cascading down into the water
we watched 2 otters playing around us, climbing up onto the boardwalk then jumping back into the water...playing on the logs that were floating around....
and as I sat and enjoyed the tranquility, it felt like Stuart and I were the only people in Southern Alaska at that time. It was an amazing few hours.
The one road into Hyder continued for a bit to a boardwalk erected for tourists to (hopefully) be able to watch the grizzlies and black bears coming in to Fish Creek to catch salmon. Unfortunately we were there in the wrong season for that, but it was another beautiful spot.
Driving back towards Stewart and BC the reflections in the water were stunning....
When we "entered" Alaska, USA there was no border crossing, but when we came back in to Stewart, Canada has a Customs "office", so we had to co through the whole Customs process again. It was a young lady this time and she was very serious about her job, but we wondered what on earth we could have changed from coming into Stewart and then out through Hyder. There was NOTHING in Hyder to make us suddenly illegal! Anyway she insisted I take my sunnies off, asked us where we were from (it's in our passports) how long were we here for, how did we afford to do this, when were we going home, how much alcohol did we have, did we have any bear spray (yes we do!), did we have $10 000 Canadian on us, how much did Stuart earn etc etc. It really was quite incredible, but I guess good on her for doing her job well!!
When she had finished interrogating us we had a bit of a chat. Turns out the US Customs decided they didnt need a border crossing so left, but Canada stayed and the people from Hyder (Alaska, US) didn't like this and used to shoot at the Customs office!! See what I mean by Wild West!!
Anyway fortunately she let us back in to BC,
as the alternative would have been to live forever in Hyder (where there was a Post Office, but no shops) or crossing enormous snow mountains to get to the ocean and then who knows where!!
We made it back to our RV Park,
where it cost us $28 for the night, showers included...if you put coins into the machine to get the water??? What does included mean? It took me about 6 hours to do a blog post due to the sloooowww internet, but I got it done and we headed off the next morning....North!
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