Search This Blog

Monday, July 27, 2009

Great Weather....Beautiful Country...Ah! Life In Northern B.C.

This is Meziadin Lake and Provincial Park Campground,my first stop on my northward trek on the Stewart/Cassiar highway, which eventually hooks up with the Alaska Highway just west of Watson Lake Yukon.
This is a campsite I could have had...It was the only open one along the lake front when I arrived at noon on Saturday.The first few hours drive north gave me the feeling that I was leaving civilization behind as the road got quieter.Just a smattering of R.V.'s heading south from their trip to Alaska(mostly Americans)"Merkins"as I fondly call them.
I was surprised to find the campground more than half full when I arrived at noon....This is the middle of nowhere you know....None of the Provincial parks on busier highway 16 were like this.Then I realized that between here and the Yukon border are only 2 more of these parks so people get in early as there is a fair amount of R.V. travel on this road.............Now we jump to..................................Yesterday,Sunday....my day trip to Stewart/Hyder......Below is one of the many small glaciers along this 50K stretch of road.....what a beautiful day..warm.....low 80's....look at that blue sky.....I'm so fortunate to see this area in good weather as they don't get a lot of that here.

One downer on this little side trip was more "seal coating" of the highway,a dusty process.They guide you by pilot car.I had a 15 minute wait so I talked to the nice flag lady and found that the Bear Glacier(the big one on this road)was in the middle of the piloted stretch of road......Hey! I want to stop and take photo's I exclaimed as I jumped up and down...not be piloted through in a cloud of dust....Can I leave the group?....sure she says but you are on your own.....ok...good.(I didn't really jump up and down.....I was just playing Drama Queen........or drama guy....or something.Here is the first shot from a distance.


Here is a close up....look at that blue color.



And a medium distance shot below.




I carried on toward the town of Stewart alone,catching up with the others at the end of the pilot run.....below is the downtown of this town of a little less than 1000 people.It is situated at the head of the Portland Canal,a salt water fjord that is 90mi/145k's long.It is a natural boundary between Canada and the Alaskan panhandle.






Here is a shot of the mist trying to surround the pier.






A view of the Canal looking back toward Stewart.













Entering Hyder Alaska....you just drive in....no U.S. customs....but you have the Canadian customs when you come back out....asking all the usual questions......what did you buy etc.Jeeeze....I never even though of buying anything.





I drove through this spread out town of around 100 people and carried on for a couple of miles until I reached this place below.







This is where everyone comes to view the grizzlies eating the spawning salmon from the safety of the viewing stand.You can see it goes quite a distance.The small parking lot was full so I found a 2nd parking lot and went back to the entrance only to find that you had to pay to enter.......I forgot I was back in the U.S...So I gave him my 3 Toonies and entered........Not a good time as the last bear sighting was earlier that morning when a grizzly and her young one were down eating fish.I looked around amongst the people,many with camera's and huge scopes waiting for something to happen and asked......anything happening?Well we got spawning salmon and we saw a bald eagle a while ago a guy says......geeze,I thought....I paid six bucks to see what I can see in my back yard at home for free.Oh well it was a nice experience on a nice day and it was my first visit to Alaska.








Coming back I went through the usual Border questions(no line-up though)and headed back to camp.Below is a waterfall you can see all the way to the top of the mountain.I only took a shot of the lower part to capture the large snowbank that it drops into...................A side note......Anyone know how I can stop the spacing between pictures from spreading out more and more as I go down the page?This is driving me crazy!
















A final shot looking back toward Stewart as I wait for the pilot car.Look at that gorgeous blue sky.







4 comments:

  1. Download and use Windows Live writer. You do your posting offline then post online when you have a connection. It actually downloads your blog settings when you set up the program... Very simple.

    In the mean time, just go into the open areas once you are done posting and delete the extra lines. Blogger does someting weird when inserting pictures, and the only way I could fix it is going into each section and deleting the blank lines... Great Pictures, keep up the good work...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bill, the way I do it is, upload all my pictures to the blog at once, like you told me, then, when spaces start to occur, just put your cursor where you think the picture should be and press your delete button a few times...that will bring the picture back up on the page - just be careful to not do it too rushed because if you push delete one time too many and the picture gets up into the line beside the cursor - it will delete the picture - that has happened to me on more than one occasion! You have to do this pretty much with every picture, unless you only have a one liner of text between them. Great pictures! Glad you are enjoying the north country it has to be more pleasant than at home right now. HOT!

    Kathy

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice pictures & good thing you made it back across the border without anymore tire fiascos. As far as spacing & photos in your blog just rememer, back space, back space, back space. Itype my blog in an Outlook email format then copy & paste it into the blog. Then I add the pictures one at a time starting with the last photo of the blog first. I simply drag & drop each photo where I want it between paragraphs. I then back space my paragraphs up to the photos & add the captions. Don't know if that's the right way to do it but it works for me..........

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks all, for the advice,I will try the suggestions.ANT-Zee,I may try the program you suggested..I wondered how it was done off line.I carry my own internet system with me so am on line at every stop but one of these days I may need an alternate way of doing it.

    ReplyDelete