Bears, Salmon, and Hoary Marmots?
Why Did the Hoary Marmot Cross the Road?
Wow! We, who had never before seen a hoary marmot, nor even really wondered what one looked like, saw two of the creatures on the same day! Some folks from Holland who happened to be driving behind us stopped at the next turnout and asked what the creature was that we had slowed down for and tried to photograph. We didn’t know. Gary guessed a hedgehog, I thought maybe a groundhog, but knew it was too large to be a hedgehog. My other guess was a hyrax. I know I’d heard that name somewhere, but couldn’t’ remember ever seeing one. This thing was probably as large as a beaver, but had a little fuzzy tail like a squirrel and a pointed-looking face. After driving almost to the head of the Salmon Glacier, on the return trip, we saw another one—crossing the road. Still no picture.
We talked to the Dutch folks for a few minutes, told them how much we’d enjoyed our visit to their country and I tried out my pronunciation of “Schipohl,” the airport in Amsterdam. I’ll never get it right, but they said I’d come pretty close. I was disappointed we couldn’t identify the animal for them, but as luck would have it, they were walking up to the wildlife center I’ll tell about later just as we were leaving and I was able to tell them what it was. They had heard of marmots before, and after wrangling with “hoary” and trying to think of a European equivalent (rime), we got the idea across and everyone left happy.
Our blog has been pretty silent for a few days. We were not idle, however. After spending a wonderful weekend in Seward and thinking it just didn’t get any better than a halibut dinner at Ray’s on the waterfront, it did get better. We backtracked from Seward, past Anchorage, then turned toward Destruction Bay on the Alaskan Highway. The drive through the Wrangell Mountains was another of those breath-taking drives through some of the most gorgeous scenery that can’t be described and that pictures can’t convey. There were several glaciers and waterfalls and seemingly unending ranges of peaks reaching into the clouds.
We spent one night camped on the Copper River in the middle of nowhere at a place called Gakona. Most of our fellow campers appeared to be workers working on the telephone lines and right-of-way. There were some young people on a motorcycle camping in a tent. Ah, the resilience of youth. The morning we pulled out the temperature registered 34 degrees.
That evening, after a rockinghorse ride over the heaves and around blood-curdling curves, we reached Destruction Bay. Destruction Bay is on the largest lake in the Yukon and its name escapes me for the moment. The lake is beautiful. The weather was chilly, clouds were looming, and we found the reason the place is named Destruction Bay. There was a camp there during World War II. The enlisted men were in barracks down near what is now a small village. The officers were higher up on a hill, where the campground now sits. A storm came through with winds approaching 200 miles per hour and wiped out the enlisted men’s tents and many of the men. The camp was never rebuilt.
The campground owner caters to caravans of motor homes and campers who plan their stopovers with him. He has a live band (don’t know where the musicians come from, the woods, I suppose), and great food. The bread is all homemade and we had it for breakfast the morning we left. They were getting ready for the last caravan of the year to come through the day we left, then they’d spend a week or two closing up. We saw fresh snow on the mountain tops that already had some caps they keep year-round.
We stopped at the end of the lake for pictures and met a young couple from Belgium who had been over last year and toured part of the lower 48. This year they were on their way to Alaska. We told them how much we’d enjoyed our river cruise in their country a couple of years ago. Later in the day when we stopped at a rest area we met two couples and the ten-year-old son of one of them. They were traveling in a 1980’s-era bus that they have converted to run on cooking oil. They have been living and traveling on the bus for about two years now. They work at odd jobs, sell some of their artwork and crafts, get their fuel from restaurants, and were from Charleston, South Carolina. If you’d like to learn more about these artists, check out their website at transitantenna.com. You never know who you’ll meet on the Alaskan Highway! We saw a camper today that had a bumper sticker from South of the Border plastered across its rear.
We retraced part of our earlier route past Whitehorse, where we had stayed for one night. This time we arrived about one p.m. and I searched until I found a hair salon so I could get a trim. After that was taken care of we stopped at the Beringia Interpretive Center and learned a little about the mammoths, 800-pound beavers and other interesting creatures that have been found in the vicinity.
We arrived in Stewart, BC, on Saturday afternoon, early enough to drive the couple of miles into town from the campground and get a look around. It still doesn’t get dark until almost ten p.m. We drove through the tiny town, along the Portland Canal, where we saw logs floating awaiting transfer to ships. There isn’t much industry in Stewart. We ate dinner at the King Edward Hotel, for which we paid a kingly price, then drove on out of town and into Hyder, Alaska. Hyder is even smaller than Stewart, but very charming. When you go to Hyder, there is no U.S. Customs Office. If you go from Stewart to Hyder, you gotta come back on the same road, so only the Canadians have an office at the border crossing. What happens in Hyder either stays in Hyder or goes back to Stewart. There is only one road.
As an aside, we are amazed at the number of cyclists calmly pedaling their way up these mountains. Sometimes alone. The pastor at the Stewart church told us they had once had a visitor, from North Carolina no less, who had pedaled across the continent and was on his way to Prudhoe Bay. We could only shudder at the thought. Remembering that we actually camped in tents in our “good old days” is hard enough to deal with. We like having the comforts of home in our Prowler.
Sunday morning we attended church at the Stewart Community Church. It was great to be with other Christians again. A youth group from Alberta was in Stewart for the second year, putting siding provided by their church on the Stewart Church building. The youth led the service and the young preacher did a great job. Afterwards we were invited for sandwiches, but after chatting awhile we left to head for the scenic highway to Hyder.
The thing both towns have going for them is the view. Stewart has a glacier you can see from almost any point in the town. Hyder’s view isn’t as dramatic, but what they lack in view, they make up with by having a bus. The bus restaurant that serves “mermaid chowder,” which is to die for—and they have bears.
The single road that runs from Stewart to Hyder continues on up for 25 or so miles, past some old mines, gorgeous scenery following the course of the Salmon River and ends at the top of the Salmon Glacier. The Salmon Glacier is the fifth-largest in British Columbia and one of the few you can drive up to. We didn’t go all the way to the top because the clouds had rolled in. I mentioned seeing the strange creature which turned out to be a hoary marmot. We also saw a black bear walking across the road. On our way back to Stewart this time we stopped at the wildlife viewing area run by the National Park Service. They have built a walkway out over the river, high above where the bears come to fish.
The folks at church had told us to go early in the morning or about eight p.m. We happened to be there about six, and had almost decided to return to the camper for a nap, then come back, when two young grizzlies came galloping out of the forest, under the walkway and splashed their way into the stream. According to the wildlife officers they are four-year-old male siblings. Apparently their mother stays in the area and they have come to know her and her cubs over the years.
We had been watching the salmon at the end of their spawning run. There were dead salmon lying around the shallow water and a few along the banks. The sea gulls were out in force, eating until they could barely waddle—until the bears showed up. The bears cavorted around up and down the stream for a good little while, chasing the dying salmon into the shallows and chomping down on them.
It’s sad to think that the salmon go through all the effort to swim from the ocean back to the streams they were born in, only to die at the end, but we discussed how many people and animals depend on this cycle. The native people of the Northwest have for centuries caught and dried the salmon and are still allowed to fish for subsistence. Others are limited in the number they can keep, especially of certain species. The bears fatten themselves for the winter hibernation and many other animals depend on this yearly cycle. Even the eggs and hatchlings provide food for other creatures in the chain. Death is never pretty, but it’s the ugly side of dealing with a fallen world. How wonderful it will be when it’s all made right again!
We almost hated to leave Stewart, but Monday morning we hitched up and wended our way back to Canada Highway 16 and onto the Yellowhead Highway. We are really on our way home now and look forward to new scenery and sights along the way. The grand mountains and snow-capped peaks have given way to rolling hills and hay fields. We are beginning to come to larger towns closer together. We are in a beautiful area known as Williams Lake. Tomorrow we plan to spend the night in Hope, British Columbia, then on Thursday, we’ll stop in Everett, Washington, and spend a day or two with our niece, Rachel and her family.
