No bears

Just like the sign in Yosemite

We returned twice more to the bear viewing platform at Fish Creek in Hyder. The ranger told us that the best chance of spotting a bear was first thing in the morning or in the evening. We tried both. We stopped by the platform after dinner. We ran into the couple who were camping near us the night before and spent a while talking about salmon. She had worked for the forest service specializing in salmon. No one saw any bears. Then we woke up at 5:30 AM PDT to be at the platform when it opened at 6. Hyder follows Pacific time not Alaska time, because it is so closely related to Stewart BC. Unfortunately Apple doesn’t know this, so our phones changed time zones unnecessarily. We were one of the first visitors of the day. The ranger said that no bears had visited yet. We walked the path, then went back to the RV to shower, walked the path, went back to eat, walked the path, still nothing.

Amy asked the ranger more questions about the bears:

Why did they put the platform in that location? It’s because there was a bridge built to get to a mine, and people started hanging out on the bridge. It isn’t like Brooks falls where there is a natural boundary that the bears prefer.

When is peak bear season? During the salmon run, which is now.

On a very good day how many bears show up? The ranger has seen a family of bears or two at a time. One ranger saw four once. Nowhere near the numbers that we saw at Brooks Falls.

So we left. At 8AM we were at the border going back to Canada. The guard questioned us a lot, which seemed odd since the only realistic way to get into Hyder is from Canada. We told her that we were there for just a day. Where are you going? Do you have weapons? Ammunition? Tobacco? Alcohol? Weed? CBD? She chastised us for getting ahead of her list. But you will be happy to know that she let us back in.

Before the border. Joke sign was posted as a protest for reduced hours at the border

Then we drove and drove. Still no bears. The Milepost said that we were likely to see some. Nope.

Near the end of the Cassiar Highway there was a First Nations community of Gitwangak (luckily we didn’t have to pronounce it!) They have one of the largest concentrations of standing Totem Poles in Northwest BC. We had to pull over to check it out.

We drove until we got to Burns Lake, a town about two hours from Prince George. There is a lovely municipal park on the water with free camping. So we are parking for the night and plan for another long day of driving tomorrow.