6/4/07 - A Night in the USA!

I drove through hundreds more miles of BC today under overcast skies and occasional rain. North of Burns Lake and the not-too-far-off town of Smithers (no kidding – for all you Simpsons fans) things started to get really interesting again as far as scenery goes, but unfortunately it was mostly blanketed in fog. It is all very lush and green (which of course requires lots of rain like today), but every once in a while I could spy a tall snow-capped mountain poking through. The rivers are all raging and well over their banks, and in each town I drove through the locals were out on the bridges for a look. I hear they had record snow up here this winter (over 30 feet in some areas).

I finally saw the first indication that AK is ahead, though still a few days away:

Towards the end of today things began to look very southern Alaska-esque, and I realized I was running parallel to the very southern edge of AK although I was still in Canada. Then I discovered, after about 11 hours of driving, that I was only 40 miles from Hyder, AK to the west, so tonight I sleep in the U.S.A.!!! So you figure I’m almost there, right? Well, tomorrow it’s back to Canada to go up the rest of the way through BC and across the Yukon Territory to Anchorage.

It is funny to think I’m in AK right now, but still can’t get to Anchorage from here by car without going back into Canada, and still have over 1350 miles to go. The roads out here are not exactly Highway 70, and I’m totally at peace with that.

But, you know you are getting somewhere when you see nice blue roadside glaciers!

And this is DEFINITELY bear country. I saw 19 black bears right next to the road this evening in about 2.5 hours including this mom and her three TINY cubs:

– (please click to enlarge) they looked like puppies, and were about 1/3 the size of the cub we saw in Banff (pictured above). Real newborns. As I slowed down momma bear quickly had them scurry up a tree, and she stood at its trunk ready to defend them. This is the kind of situation I DO NOT want to see hiking, but from the car it was exhilarating. Sorry the pic is a bit out of focus, but I was taken by surprise and was in a real hurry to at least grab a picture and then move on. No need to linger and stress them out.

For comparison, I saw more bears today in a couple of hours than we saw in Tetons, Yellowstone, Glacier, and Banff combined.

Amazing.