Memories of Fish Creek in Hyder Alaska

In 2005, near the end of my 12,000 mile round-trip expedition from San Diego to Alaska, I drove to Haines Alaska, where I spent several memorable days before boarding a ferry down the inland passage with a goal to spend time in Alaska’s southernmost region in Hyder. This is that story.

2005-07-17 Ferry Ride From Haines to Hyder

At 10:45pm I finally got aboard the ferry, and the sea voyage began. It was a good idea to get a cabin for this leg of the journey. From the looks of things, it was quite a scramble for everyone who was staying on the deck to find a space. I found my room and tried to sleep.

2005-07-18: Aboard the ferry M/V Matanuska

Sleep was hard to come by last night. Between the vibration of the engines and the party crowd in the next cabin with their nonsense, I struggled. Fortunately, Juneau was only a few hours away, and after the loud crowd disembarked, I could drift off. I began to think of the engine vibration as one of those “Magic Finger” machines that one used to find attached to those motel beds, that for a quarter, would vibrate the bed for a cheap massage.

My GPS told me we were traveling at a rate of 18 mph. Out the window of my cabin, a low ceiling of clouds limited my views of the mountains we passed. Through them, I could see the occasional patch of sky that offered hope of better weather later on. But it could just have been teasing me.

I used the ferry time to relax and do computer work in my cabin. I ventured out onto the deck a few times to enjoy the fresh air. Because of the high winds on deck and the unstable conditions, I decided against bringing out the camera gear. Even on the occasion that we encountered the pod of about 20 Humpback Whales, the best way to enjoy the experience was by using binoculars and trying to stay clear of the wind and the chill. It was quite a thrill, and I enjoyed the fluke slapping, spy hopping, breaching, and the upright tails flipped before a deep dive. The captain was good enough to announce the whale sighting opportunities, so I could get up on deck in time to enjoy the encounter. When he announced killer whales though, I wasn’t able to get on deck quickly enough. Unlike the humpies, they were quick to get moving on.

We pulled into Petersburg with not enough time for anyone to get off board and explore the town. I hadn’t planned to do so anyway. This was a town with a LOT of boats and docks … significantly more than I’d seen in Haines. I could sense the potential for some interesting encounters here, given the time and resources.

Around 5pm, we pulled out of Wrangell. From the ferry it looked like another place worth a later visit. It struck me how much it resembled Haines. They could be sister cities. From here we’re off to Ketchikan and by 9:30am tomorrow, I expect to arrive in Prince Rupert, BC.

2005-07-19: Prince Rupert BC

Getting off the ferry was a pain. First, my time calculations were off. At 5:30am the PA announced that we’d be docking in an hour. Even with the loss of an hour for the time change, this was two hours earlier than I figured. Ah well! I managed to get my cabin gear packed and get showered before they opened the car deck. I had to make two trips from the cabin to get my gear loaded into the Samurai. The kicker was that on boarding the ferry, I had to dismount my two 5 gallon Jerry cans and store them in the ship’s paint locker at the opposite end of the boat as my parking location. By the time I was ready to roll, all the rest of the cars, buses, motorcycles and RV’s had already gotten into the customs check line and I had to take my place at the rear. It took an hour for the customs agents to get to me, and then I got pulled into the secondary inspection area for another 20 minutes. Following this, I had to spend time organizing my gear to recover from the pilfering that had just gone on by the customs agents.

Finally free to travel, I went on a quest for breakfast. I took a tour of the ‘downtown’ area nearest the docks. Those restaurants I encountered seemed to me to be some combination of oriental and western cuisine. I made a selection and enjoyed a small breakfast at “Herby’s Family Restaurant”.

After eating breakfast, I set my sights on Stewart-Hyder some 300 miles away to the north by highway. Other than fuel and rest stops, I did not deviate from the plan. The scenery was pleasant until the last stretch down to Stewart, then it became magnificent. The road navigated an extremely deep gorge decorated with glaciers. In particular, “Bear Glacier” extended from high up the nearly vertical slopes and terminated at the river below, calving its white-blue ice into the waters. A little further down the road we encounter ribbons of falling water as they stream from the glaciers pillowing the tops of the ridge lines. Just wonderful!

I drove through Stewart, BC, and the 2 Km of road that led to Hyder, and I was in Alaska again. There, I found accommodation for the next two nights. Then I set out for “Fish Creek”, just four miles out of town on a dirt road. I’d read about the observatory for watching bears feed on salmon. I scoped it out, but I was too tired to stay long (the light was dim) and I didn’t see any bears that day.

2005-07-20: Stewart/Hyder

There is a close link between these two small towns of Stewart BC and Hyder AK. Even though an international border separates them, they are just 2 Km apart. The US Customs does not monitor the crossing, but Canada does. The expected currency in Hyder is Canadian money.

It rained last night, and a gray and cloudy sky greeted me this morning. My plans included exploring the surrounding area and making a run to the nearby Bear Observatory.

In Hyder, at the Bear Observatory I found warblers, thrushes, and sparrows. The rangers at the observatory stated that there weren’t many fish in the creek, and it seemed to have resulted in very few bears feeding in the creek. Any bears that came, did not linger. I saw about 20-30 fish in the creek, but in a good run, there would be hundreds. The salmon here were Chum Salmon. I missed the bears. They made an appearance early in the morning, then retired before I got there. 

I stayed at the observatory all day and left in the early evening. I did better with birds than with the bears. I saw a couple of families of Common Mergansers, a Fox Sparrow, Cedar Waxwings, a MacGillivray’s Warbler (my 1st), and some juvenile Ruby-Crowned Kinglets.

I also had a couple of very pleasant meetings. In the morning, I met a gal whom the locals saw as their ‘bird expert’. I don’t think she would consider herself as such, but she was enthusiastic about the local bird scene. Later in the afternoon, I had a long, very pleasant visit with a couple from Prescott, AZ. After chatting for quite some time I decided to ask if they knew a guy who I knew had retired there. He had been my first GOOD insurance agent when I started my business in 1983. Not only did they know him, the lady had gone through school and graduated high school with him. Small world! We shared many stories about places we’d each been to in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah.

2005-07-21: Leaving Hyder

I got rolling out of my room in Hyder at 6am this morning. The cafe (Wild Flour) wasn’t open yet, so I decided to drive the four miles back to the Bear Observatory. While I was visiting with a gentleman at the railing of the platform and overlooking the creek, out from the brush on the opposite side of the creek popped a momma black bear and her two cubs. She put on a show running up and down the creek after fish that she could not seem to catch, then ate some berries and led her cubs along the creek. It was a nice show.

Then I decided that it was time to put my own ‘show’ on the road and I headed back down to town. I had breakfast at the Wild Flour (excellent food too), then crossed back into Canada, and started my push southward.

On my drive, I reached Moricetown Canyon and decided to have a soup break (I heated water with a 12v coffee pot while I drove). At this location the river below chokes down from an 80-100′ shallow, peaceful channel, to 15-20′ chute and drops perhaps 50 feet over a tenth of a mile. The gentle stream turned into a raging, churning boil of water as it roared through this narrow passage. That made this place a natural gauntlet where the local ‘first nation’ peoples (as the Indians or native peoples are called in Canada) could stand at the banks with long poles fitted with steel hooks and try to catch a salmon swimming to spawn. I watched the scene for a half hour, but I didn’t get to witness a ‘catch’. I don’t think the fish were present in great numbers for my visit, but I enjoyed the spectacle.