To start with, here are some pictures from last week’s wedding celebration in Pemberton Meadows.

 

After  Pemberton, we have been more or less off the grid.  Stewart to Whitehorse

Stewart and Hyder are must-see remote twin villages at the east end of a long Pacific fiord curiously called the Portland Canal.  Stewart BC is named after an American.   These days it is 500 people down from its mining heyday of 10,000.  We celebrated Canada Day in Stewart.  It is one of those towns where everyone is in the Canada Day parade.   We met several old timers and the new RCMP officer (in a nice way).  And we got some tasty local salmon.

Hyder Alaska is named after a Canadian, and today it has less than 100 people with only road access from Canada.  Access to Hyder is unguarded by the USA, however note the Canadian helicopter.    A gentleman walking down Hyder’s main street with a rifle caught our attention.  Apparently no taxes, no police, no regulations, no services.   A mecca for civil libertarians and off grid fans.

We saw two large glaciers.  The Bear Glacier is right on the highway.  The Salmon Glacier is 35 km (20 miles) up a dirt road from Hyder and on the way you cross back into Salmon Glacier from Summit Canada.  Pretty amazing – the 5th largest Glacier in Canada.  Note at the end of June the road is still not graded so it is pothole heaven and not recommended for motorhomes or trailers.   The salmon run is a bit late this year so we did not see the grizzly bears feasting.  Better to come late July and early August.

 

Highway 37N  takes you through the remote northern interior of BC.  100+ km between outposts and long line-ups at the single gas pumps.  Lengthy narrow sections with random pot holed gravel, so beware.  However the mountain ranges and valleys are spectacular.  We saw a moose and a brown coloured black bear.  We dropped in at Jade City and watched Discovery Channel filming Jade Fever.  We were locked down and the bear trap was out at our campground at Boya Lake Provincial Park (try to get site 12).

To all of our US family, happy 4th.  Our celebration event was a Bald Eagle fly-over on the Alaska Highway.  We are now in Whitehorse at The Yukon Inn and it’s time to shower and go out for a good meal after 6 days of off-grid camping.

 

2 Replies to “Off the Grid”

  1. Looks wonderful! We thought Stewart/Hyder were very cool too. Lots of interesting characters. Thought it was pretty funny that the Americans had to do all their banking in Canada. I love all your pictures.

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