Sharp's Travels

We both slept good last night. We were up early and I made pancakes for breakfast.

I had a number of books I’ve read and the campground has a book exchange so Gay & I took them over to the office to exchange.

There were a number of hummingbirds at the feeders by the camp office. That’s my favorite bird. I love to watch them buss in for their food.

At 10am we took our chairs down by the office for Spike’s Sunday Prayer meeting. It lasted 30 minutes and by 10:45 we were all lined up ready to carpool to Salmon Glacier. It was 28 miles up an old dirt mining road with lots of pot holes. It was just a beautiful day to drive up there.

This is one of the world’s biggest glaciers you can drive to. We went past a few old gold mines on the way up. We parked and hiked up the far end of the snow covered road.

The glacier was really neat. We could see the different shades of blue-green in sections of it. The mountains surrounding it were beautiful. There were lots of waterfalls flowing down into the canyon.

We started back down and heard on the radio that someone had spotted a bear. We weren’t fortunate enough to see it, but there will be more bears on this trip I’m sure.

We stopped at the overlook on back down the road and had our picnic lunch before returning to camp.


At 6pm we all headed to the Seaalaska Inn for happy hour and a halibut dinner.

Gay has uploaded pictures of the day. See album: Hyder- Salmon Glacier

We were ready to pull out of our campground in Hazelton, BC by 9:30am. Spike had us all lined up in the order they wanted us to file into our next campground in Hyder, AK. He took us through the villages of Kitseguecla & Kitwanga to view the totem poles and the old churches.

The sides of the road were lined with little wild prickly roses and also clover which they called bear candy. The bears come to the sides of the roads to eat their candy. Gay saw 1 black bear and I saw 1 black bear and one white spirit bear. If a person views a spirit bear it means luck for them and their family. Yah!

Spike got permission to use the yard of a saw mill as a stop for our lunch break. Everyone got something to eat from their unit and then we were on our way.

We traveled through the Coast Mountains and what awesome sites we saw. The snow caped mountains were awesome. You could see the water falls come from near the top of the mountain. We went by Bear Glacier. You could see the beautiful hues of blue peaking out the end of the Glacier.

We crossed over the border at Stewart BC into Hyder, Alaska about 3pm. Hyder is like stepping back into time. The gal at the campground said they don’t want anyone here that will make changes. All 100 of them like it just the way it is.

We had our meeting with Spike and then we all dispersed to set up camp.

Our afternoon was free so we went to check out the shops in Stewart and Hyder and then back to the “Blue Bus” for deep fired fresh Halibut and potato salad. It was so good. We thought we needed dessert with that so we went to one of the shops in town for hand
dipped ice cream.

We talked to the owner of the shop and he told us if we wanted to see bear we should go to the dump, so we did it! Sure enough, one came out of the trees and climbed up on a log and rubbed his butt on the log, sat down and then proceeded to lie down. Gay got lots of neat pictures of him. Another truck finally scared him off.

We were also told we may find eagles at the boat dock. We did see one off in a distance, setting on a piling in the water. The picture didn’t come out great you can at least see it is an eagle.

We came back to the campsite to pick up another couple and we all went out to the Bear Viewing Dock. NO BEARS! We are just a few weeks early to see the bear catch the salmon as they try and swim up river. Darn.

Tomorrow is another day. Who knows what we’ll see or do!

Gay has uploaded pictures of the day. See album: Hazelton BC to Hyder AK

This is the first day of our tour and we car pooled to the village of Kispiox about 9 miles from our campsite. Spike narrated the trip. He told us about the wild flowers and trees along the way. When we arrived we went to the Totem Park and he explained the meanings & history of all the totem poles there.

The totem poles are made out of Red Cedar and they commission someone out of their own clan to carve the poles. They are paid for by giving the carver goods for his work. Each pole represented a different clan of people.

The poles can get up to over 180yrs old and when they fall they leave them lay right where they land, even if it means stepping over them.

On the way back I spotted a black bear chewing on the plants along the road. Spike backed up for us so we could all get some pictures.

We were back in the campsite by noon for lunch then we met at 2pm to take the Ksan Historic Village & Totem tour.

Spike took us on a path down to the where the rivers meet and explained about the movement & erosion of the river.

We then headed on over to the Ksan Village and got a personal tour of the grounds. We went into the Frog House where up to as many as 60 people in a family would share one house. Next was the Wolf House where meetings and other gatherings were held. There were all kinds of artifacts of their culture displayed in these buildings.

The third building was the Fireweed House which held all their regalia and costumes for the presentations they put on during the summer. Much of it dated back years & years. They are keeping their history and customs alive for all to see.

Outside you could also see a spirit house that was erected over the site where someone was buried, a smoke house and a building constructed high in the air to store meats away from the bears. Gay also got pictures of a totem pole being made to display on the grounds.

The museum was our last stop. It had all kinds of artifacts used by the clans along with a new section upstairs devoted solely to totem poles. Everything was so interesting.

At 5:15 we headed down to the clan house for our pot luck. Spike had cooked fresh King Salmon with a brown sugar glaze on it and we all brought a dish to pass. The salmon was fabulous. What a meal! What a wide variety of food.

Spike gave us the rest of the information regarding our travels and then we all headed back to our units and started the preparations for heading out tomorrow.

Gay has uploaded pictures for the day. See album: Kispiox- Ksan Village

I got the laundry started early this morning and then we went for a walk up town by way of the river path. We’d been told we may see bear across the river. We checked out the river boat and artifacts around that area and took some pictures of the streets in Hazelton.

Also took a number of pictures of all the rigs here in the campground that will be going on our tour.

Gay went scouting for wood with Griffin so he could make his sign for the sign forest in Watson Lake while I finished up the laundry.

We played a few games of magnetic lawn darts and Gay won all the games.

We had our meeting at the clan house at 6:30 pm. Spike is giving us all the low down on how things will go for our trip. It gave everyone a chance to socialize and get to know each other.

Gay has uploaded pictures for the day. See album Hazelton, BC 6-26-08