Hyder, Alaska – August 11th

Well, so much for “We’ll be heading home for sure!”! We are in Hyder, Alaska and have been having the time of our lives filming the grizzlies! But I’ll get back to that later. First, I’ll fill you in on life in Dawson City, Yukon.

My daughter-in-law, Sharon, gave me a copy of James Michener’s book, Alaska to take along on our trip. It couldn’t have been a better choice! I happened to be reading Michener’s description of Dawson City as it was in it’s heyday as we arrived in today’s Dawson City.

We loaded the trailer and truck on this barge so we could cross the Yukon River. That's the only way you can get to Dawson City when you're coming from Chicken, AK on the "Top of the world highway".

As we walked the wooden sidewalks and visited some of the actual buildings that were still standing, I tried to imagine what it must have been like way back then. The streets were muddy, but not as pictured in the book, and there weren’t any “tent cities” around so it was a bit difficult to imagine what life might have been like way back in the 1800’s. Much more rough, rowdy and dirty I’m sure.

I took lots of pictures of the buildings and tombstones from an old cemetery up the hill. All of the graves belonged to men… don’t know where they buried the women.

The area is still being actively “searched” for gold and there are “No Trespassing” sign all over. Instead of digging a mine to locate the gold, the prospectors found gold by panning in the rivers. As all the prime locations were claimed early on, the late arrivals had to stake a claim higher up the slopes next to the rivers and start digging. But before they could dig they had to thaw the permanently frozen ground with a log fire and then haul up the “pay dirt” and run it through a sluice which hopefully sifted out the nugget and flakes of gold. Consequently most of the trees were cut down and used for fuel and the trees standing today are less than 100 years old.

Once corporations got interested in the gold they brought in dredges and we took a tour of one that the Canadian government is restoring. It’s quite a huge machine that floats in a small lake and the front end digs into the earth and gravel all the way down to bedrock. The rocks are run through an onboard sluice which removes the gold and the useless rocks and gravel are shot out the back end of the machine. The debris field looks like a gravel snake and you can see them all along the roads outside of town.

A trip to Dawson City wouldn’t have been complete without a stop at “Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Saloon” to see Gertie entertain the crowd. She and her girls put on a good show and our admission was good for all three show but we decided to head for our RV because the place was packed with people. We left for home after spending a very interesting time in Dawson City.

The road back down to the Alaska Highway was still rough and somewhere along the way a rock or something dislodged a wire to our trailer breaks and we were without brakes again. We limped into Whitehorse and found a place that promptly diagnosed and repaired the problem.

It took us two days to get down the Cassiar Highway to reach Hyder. The highway is a very narrow but mostly paved road. There are no shoulders and no center line so you tend to drive right down the middle of the road until another car approaches. There are several 20 miles stretches of unpaved road and areas where the road had been washed out a few days prior. All of this made for a slow trip but every rotten mile was worth it when we saw the bears in Hyder.

Hyder is promoted as the friendliest ghost town in Alaska and it’s true. I doubt that one hundred people live here. But Hyder is right next door to the larger town of Steward, B.C. and there’s an easy existence between the two towns. They’re located on a 90 mile canal that connects them to the Pacific Ocean. That’s how the salmon make it up here to spawn. And that’s what attracts the bears. And they’re everywhere! There was a large grizzly that visited our campground several times today. We were just down the road at a coffee shop and could see him walking down the road.

The safest place to see the bears (blacks and grizzly) is a gated wooden walkway that runs along Fish Creek. It’s a favorite spot for Pink and Chum Salmon to spawn and the bears love it too.

The adult bears don’t seem to mind all the people looking down on them but the cubs are curious about all of us. We’ve seen a Grizzly sow with three cubs fishing at the creek. Yesterday a male and female grizzly got into a spat when the male approached. He put on a good show with lots of snorting, growling and posturing. He chased her under the walkway but she finally got fed up and let him know so he backed off. Exciting to say the least!!

There are several professional photographers and lots of amateurs with expensive equipment taking pictures. Jim is having fits with his new camera because a lot of his pictures are fuzzy. One of the pros promised to give him some pointers tomorrow. Jim had one of his photos printed (11 x 14”) today at the combination coffee shop/photo printing shop.

This afternoon we took a self guided tour up to Salmon Glacier. It is huge and the biggest one we’ve seen yet. But we had to drive up another pot hole filled gravel mining road in order to look down on the glacier. It was spectacular because it just went on and on. We went to see the grizzlies tonight and saw two before we got rained out. The best viewing times are from 6–10 AM and 6-10 PM so we try to be there then. So…. I better get to bed. Five AM will be here before I know it.

We’ll be leaving for home on Tuesday the 14^th. (I think!)