Hyder Alaska, Fish Creek, Salmon Glacier

6/15/09
This morning we arouse early to rain for the first time on our trip and an anticipation of seeing some wildlife. We drove through Stewart and across the border into Hyder, the friendliest Ghost Town in Alaska. It is sad but it does feel like a ghost town. Lots of for sale signs and very little life going on. This is the farthest south that you can drive into Alaska. They get 10 feet of rain a year and in it's hay days in the early 1900's there were over 10,000 people living here looking for the elusive gold.
Sorry to say that it was never found

We drove on to the famous bear viewing platforms at Fish Creek. This is one of the only bear viewing areas that you can drive to and not pay big fees to see bears. However, no bear were sighted since the salmon do not start running until July. We did not do all of our research. We’ll have to come back another time for that treat. It would be really spectacular since you are very close to the bears on a fenced in board-walk just above the creek.

We then drove on into the Tongass National Forest to see some abandoned mining operations and visit the Salmon Glacier. It is the 5th Largest Glacier left from the great last ice age.Unfortunately, it was raining and very foggy. We caught glimpses of the toe of the magnificent glacier through the fog, but would love to see it on a clear day. Even with the fog, it was a beautiful drive. We had to turn back before reaching the summit of the glacier due to fog and zero visability.

Tomorrow we will leave here and head North on the Cassiar Hwy to Dease lake area for the night then to watson lake and the Alaska Hwy.