Hello Stewart (and Hyder)!

---

Have now made it part way up the Stewart-Cassiar Highway on my way to the Yukon. Today I made it to the town of Stewart, which is absolutely stunning (probably helped by the gorgeous weather). Stewart sits at the head of a long fjord (the Portland Canal, which is allegedly the fourth longest fjord in the world). And is also the town where they filmed the 2002 thriller Insomnia starring Al Pacino, Hilary Swank & Robin Williams, which is actually one of my top-ten favourite films (even though it does star Robin Williams, who I'm not so keen on, but he is surprisingly good in Insomnia. He's also rather good as a creepy loner in the film One Hour Photo. But I digress...).

Anyway...

Stewart is also only 3 km from the town of Hyder, which is in Alaska. Somewhat weirdly, the only road into Hyder is from Stewart (i.e. through Canada), and they have no border controls on the US side. So I drove across and spent an hour in the States, before returning back to Canada.

I decided not to risk the drive up the Glacier Highway. Chiefly because the local guide suggest that driving an RV up there is strongly not recommended. Shame really, as the photos of the glaciers in the guide book do look pretty fantastic.

However, on my way here I did get to see Bear Glacier, so I have kind of had my fix for the day.

I spent last night at the Meziadin Lake Provincial Park. Great location. My pitch was right by the shoreline - in fact I was somewhat nervous about backing the van in, just in case I miss judged it and ended up in the water...

After my trip to the US, and a quick bit of sunbathing, I spent most of my afternoon out on my bike (the roads are lovely and level here!). And I got to see a bear! Just as I was cycling down a road, I came to a T-junction. Looked left to see if there was anything coming, and there, in the middle of the road, was a great big black bear. Needless to say I didn't stick around to take a photo just in case he was hungry!

Anyway, that's probably enough excitement for one day. Tomorrow I'm planning to continue my journey further north. More soon...

---

Photos

Portland Canal
Looking out to sea

Alaska & Canada
The snow covered mountains on the left are in the US, the ones on the right are in Canada