Day 60. Hyder, AK

Last night about 7:30 we drove to the bear viewing platform about 3 miles up the road from our Camp Run-A-Muck (no kidding) campsite. It was our second attempt to view bears feasting on spawning chum salmon; our early afternoon attempt was fruitless. We scored 1 each black bear and griz in an hour’s time. The black was an accomplished fisher, stood stock still at the edge of the stream for a minute selecting its target, then did a quick rush forward and nailed it. Way cool! It then disappeared back into the brush to eat.

Some 15 minutes later the griz appeared, walked downstream a ¼ mile and made one floundering attempt at a salmon before disappearing around a bend in the stream. The griz’ technique was to stand in the middle of the stream and splash a lot, needs to take a lesson from the black.

As I write this, it’s 5:30 AM, and we’re preparing to go out for another viewing in ½ hour. The platform is a Forest Service facility and you have to pay a fee or show your Golden Passport to gain entry. There were about 150 people there last night and of course they all rush to the sighting point so it gets crowded. Luckily, I was the first to spot the black and it emerged close to where Trish and I were standing.

Our wakeup call yesterday at Kinaskan Lake was the maniacal laughter of a loon, reminiscent of MN, where I heard them frequently in my youth. There must be a lot of loons in Canada (the national bird?) cuz their $1 dollar coin, the loonie, has a loon engraved on one side. Their $2 coin is dubbed a two-nie cuz it’s two Loonies. Loonie’s and twonies are what one feeds into the coin-op laundry machines, carwash meters and vending machines, eh.

Later. We saw 2 more griz or maybe the same one twice, eating berries the first time, catching and eating 2 salmon the second. Took a few pix at max zoom (10X) so they’re not the best.

The mountain and glacier pix were taken on the Stewart/Hyder highway.