The Stewart Cassiar Highway

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I decided that it might be possible to get to the Arctic and Inuvik for the summer solstice. I wasn't really sure about that, but I thought it might be possible. I am going to have to boot it though in order to make it in time. I got up and headed out from the campground and up the highway. My first stop was the local Gitwangak Battle Hill. A couple hundred years ago, there was a local native band. They were quite successful raiding other bands and at times had to defend themselves. It happened that in their territory was a marvelously defensible hill that was right beside a river. The made their homes on top and got logs ready with spikes that could be rolled down up on their enemies. The leader of the tribe was called 'Nekt and he was absolutely revered. He is still talked of nowadays by the Gitwangak. He was eventually killed in a raid by another tribe, but not before his name passed into legend.



'Nekt's totem pole is in a nearby village, Gitwangak (yup, the same as the tribe). Having read about it, I headed back to the village and had a look. I found another stand of totem poles and spent time having a look. I was dawdling again. Oh well. I found 'Nekt's totem pole and saw the parts of the story that had been explained in interpretive plaques at Battle Hill. It was quite interesting.



Then it was on up the highway. My next stop was Gitanyow. There is another large stand of totem poles there, and a museum/interpretive centre as well. Unfortunately, the museum was closed, so I was again not able to learn anything much about totem poles. There is a little store by the museum, but the girl inside was singularly uninterested in me or anything I might want to know. So, I took my photos and headed off.



I stopped at a rest stop around lunch, having not actually covered that much territory, once again. I must stop dawdling quite so much. But while I was eating some lunch, a highways worker came along to clean the site. She gave some information about the Stewart spur of the highway, which I had been debating taking. I was on the point of passing by, but she told me some stuff about how beautiful it was. And I could go into Alaska there, although she referred to it as “fake Alaska” because it isn't connected to any other part of Alaska, at least not easily. So I changed my mind and went to Stewart.



It was a good choice. The way in was really quite beautiful. I really liked looking at the glaciers along the way and the line of mountains along the highway.



Stewart itself was fairly routine and not really interesting. And I decided against going to Hyden, Alaska, just because I really didn't want to spend the couple of hours that would be involved in the whole process. I left the town rather quickly.



But on the way back to the main highway, I happened on bears. Three separate bears were browsing along the edge of the highway. I took lots of photos. I was quite excited about it. I even did something rather stupid and got a bit far away from my car at one point. But it all turned out okay.



Back on the main highway, I spotted more bears. All in all, I saw 6 or 7 bears. I was happy about that. But I was waaaay behind. I wanted to get to a place called Dease Lake, but it was still so far away that I wasn't sure I would go all the way. But then I started thinking about the possibility of getting to Inuvik for the solstice and it spurred me on. It was 9 by the time I found my campground and got in and settled. I don't really want to be doing too much of that. I am going to have to set out earlier from now on and sort of set a time limit of when I will stop.



And after looking at the trip to Inuvik, it is soooo far away, that it will require three very long days to get there and not really do anything in between. I think I am going to settle for getting there when I get there and still being able to experience a perpetual day. That will be enough I think. That decision is helped along a bit by the fact that I want to visit a little town called Telegraph Creek. It's 230 kilometers out of the way, but it's a gold rush town. And it is tomorrow on the way, or not at all. If it works out that I get to Whitehorse tomorrow after visiting Telegraph Creek, I will keep the solstice thing in mind, but if I don't I am not going to worry about it anymore.

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Photos

Gitwangak Battle Hill
This odd hill sits by a river and served as a defensive position for the local First Nation. It was put to use by the revered leader Nekt.

Totem Pole
This is one of the totem poles in Gitwangak.

Totem Poles
The stand of totem poles in Gitwangak has Nekt's pole. He was the revered leader of the local First Nation long ago.

The Stewart-Cassiar Highway
The Stewart-Cassiar Highway stretches off into the distance heading north. Not many vehicles travel it during early June.

Stewart Highway Glacier
This glacier comes down across a little lake sitting by the highway to Stewart, BC.

Black Bear
I saw this black bear, the second one I had seen in the wild, browsing by the highway to Stewart.