Hyder

Aug. 11, 2004

Hyder, AK and Stewart, B.C. are located at the end of the Portland Canal and are right across the border from each other. Stewart is a town of about 500 people, but Hyder has a population of only about 80, so it calls itself the friendliest ghost town in Alaska. The reason for coming to Hyder is to see bears. Fish Creek, which is 3 miles outside Hyder, is an excellent spawning stream for chum and pink salmon (I bet you didn't know there are five different species of salmon). The salmon run, which occurs in late July and August, attracts bears since catching salmon during the spawning run is very easy.
 

From all the hoopla we have heard and read concerning Hyder, we arrived at Fish Creek half expecting to find the creek lined with bears gorging themselves on the salmon. Instead we found a boardwalk stretching at least 200 feet along the creek. The boardwalk was full of people, but no bears were in sight. Talking with the rangers, we learned that the bears do come around, but only one or two at a time and don't stay long. After all, who wants to eat dinner with up to 200 people (yes, I counted them) watching you?  Furthermore, the spawning area along Fish Creek is 3 miles long, so the bears can go elsewhere and eat salmon in peace.
 

The creek was full of salmon, both live ones and dead ones. After a period of time in the ocean, salmon return by instinct to the place where they were hatched to lay eggs and die. The female makes a redd (a hole in the gravel stream bed) and then lays her eggs into the redd; the male then fertilizes them, after which the redd is covered with gravel to protect it. The parents then die. The eggs hatch the following spring and develop into young salmon that stay in the area for two years before heading to the ocean. Chum salmon live in the ocean 3 to 5 years before returning, while pink salmon return after 2 years.
 

We arrived at Fish Creek at 6:30 AM and hung around until about 10:30, but no bears had shown up. According to the rangers, the bears usually come around in the morning and in the evening, but not so much during the day. So we headed up into the mountains above Hyder to see Salmon Glacier. It is a magnificent glacier, well worth the 18 mile drive  over a rough gravel road (at 10-15 miles per hour).
 

We returned to Fish Creek  and spent some time in the Roadtrek to recuperate from all the intense watching for bears and came back in the evening. It turned out that we missed some bear activity during the day while visiting the glacier and recuperating in the parking lot. So much for the ranger's guidance!
 

Many people build these screen contraptions to protect their vehicles from flying gravel kicked up by passing cars and trucks. We saw a lot of similar contraptions, but this one on a pickup in the Fish Creek parking lot caught our eye; it was more elaborate than most.
 

We came back to the boardwalk in the evening and had better luck. After waiting a couple of hours, we were just about to quit  because the light was getting too weak for good photography, when a sow grizzly and one cub appeared.
 

The cub went after some of the dead salmon in the stream.
 

But dead salmon was not good enough for mama bear; she chased down a live salmon.
 

The sow carried the live salmon to shore, and then killed it by shaking it before eating it. After eating a portion near the head, she headed back into the creek to get another one. Apparently, she preferred certain parts of the salmon; with them so plentiful she could afford to leave the rest of the fish for some scavenger.

I was surprised that the mother bear didn't seem at all concerned about our presence. The boardwalk on which we stood was about 15 feet above the creek. Two hundred people are not very quiet. At times the mother bear and/or the cub were right below us, as you can tell from the angle at which the photo was taken. She even looked straight at us and then went back to her dinner.