A road far less traveled, the
Stewart-Cassiar Highway 37 traverses the full length of northwestern BritishColumbia from its intersection with Highway 16 in central BC to its conclusion
just past the Yukon border. For those with the time it can be a delightfully
slower and more meandering alternative to the ALCAN Highway when heading north towards
the Yukon and Alaska. But for us, on this particular outing, the
Stewart-Cassiar was the destination as well as a point of departure to explore the
numerous provincial parks, ecological reserves, wilderness lakes, hiking trails
and historic sites located along its path. This 518 kilometer (322 mile)
corridor through the wilderness also intersected several other venturesome side
roads that enticed us to visit some of the most isolated, and we might add charming,
communities accessible by the BC road system.
At mile 626 on the ALCAN Highway we
turned south onto Highway 37, crossed the BC border, and continued across the rolling
Liard Plain on the narrow but paved two lane road. The surrounding country was characterized
by boreal forest vegetation growing on elongated ridges carved out by enormous glaciers
more than 20,000 years ago. Our map showed that this portion of the road was within
the traditional territory of the Kaska Dene First Nation who lived in and
around the settlement of Good Hope Lake just down the road. We made our first
camp at Boya Lake Provincial Park that offered two short hiking trails along its
shoreline. During our morning walk the following day we enjoyed the reflection
of clouds on the lake’s mirrored surface and found ample sign of moose, caribou
and beaver along its edge.
The economy of northwestern BC has
been principally driven by mining, starting with a succession of gold rushes in
the mid 1800s that took more than a million dollars worth of gold from the Cassiar
region alone. In more recent times several nephrite jade mining operations have
enriched the local economy by employing both miners and artisans. We stopped in
at Jade City to understand more about this green semiprecious stone and to ogle
the beautiful jewelry and sculpture that was being locally produced. From the
folks at the store we learned that jade has historically been highly prized by
the Chinese, even beyond gold and silver, and that prior to the communist
revolution the ownership of jade was for the most part the exclusive porogitive
of the nobility. However in the past decade or so, with the rising economic
power of the middle class, the demand and price for jade has soared. The result
has been that today 90% of all the nephrite jade produced in the world now
comes from northwestern BC, and 90% of that is exported to China.
The highway skirted the east side of a
long azure blue lake before arriving at the town of the same name, Dease Lake.
A small community with most all of the needed amenities, it sat at the
intersection of the Telegraph Creek Road. Our first substantial side road, we
turned to explore this 113 kilometer (70 mile) two lane dirt road after filling
up at the service station. The first half of the road was fairly straight and flat
and followed the clear flowing Tanzilla River. After awhile we pulled over for
a leg stretch and strolled up a short trail where we were stopped in our tracks
by the stunning colors of the fall foliage. Scanning the terrain ahead with
binoculars we were able to see three mountain goats perched on the canyon walls
far in the distance.
The road began a nerve wracking decent
where the Tanzilla entered the larger Stikine River. The one lane track had no
guardrails and scary steep drop-offs, sometimes on both sides! Brenda white
knuckled it down the narrow switchbacks and prayed that we would not encounter
any oncoming traffic. Luckily we met no vehicles coming the other way and the
road surface was dry, a good thing since we learned later that the road can be especially
slippery after a storm.
At the bottom of the gorge was the
Tahltan First Nation hamlet of Goon-tdar-shaga (where the spring water stops).
A collection of seasonal use cabins and smokehouses located strategically at a
prime spot for dip netting salmon. We could not help but notice that several of
the cabins facing the river exhibited the creativity and artistic flare of
their owners.
We were greatly intrigued by the
geology in this portion of the Stikine River Provincial Park. The canyon that
surrounded us had been carved by the mighty Stikine River and to a lesser
extent by the Tanzilla, Tuya and Klastline Rivers that flowed into it. The
bedrock along the bottom of the river was so old that it was formed before North
America was even a separate continent and the upper layers, which were revealed
along the canyon walls, were composed of sedimentary and volcanic rock that had
been tortured and twisted by eons of plate tectonic collision and uplift.
Known as the GrandCanyon of the Stikine, this stretch of the river has been successfully
navigated by only a handful of determined individuals and is considered an
ultimate challenge for the world’s best whitewater kayakers. The area is also notable
for a sizeable population of mountain goats that, unlike their alpine cousins,
have uniquely adapted to descending into the steep sided canyons to avoid potential
predators.
Near the end of the road was the small
town of Telegraph Creek, which is without a doubt, the most remote town in BC
assessable by a road. The older section of town, located along the Stikine River,
had several buildings that date back to the gold rush era. An evening stroll through
this historic section felt like a walk back in time to the frontier beginnings
of the Provence. Telegraph Creek was originally an access point for the
construction of a proposed telegraph system that was to connect Vancouver BC to
Dawson City in the Yukon. The invention of the wireless radio made the project
obsolete but the town and the route carved through the wilderness continued to
be used by prospectors, trappers and guides long after the telegraph line was a
thing of the past.
We got a room facing the
river at the Stikine Riversong Lodge, a 130 year old building that was once the
Hudson’s Bay Company trading post in the region. We much enjoyed its rustic
charm, antique furnishing and historic photos and memorabilia that decorated
its walls. Though it was well past the end of the season our charming host made
us feel most welcome and shared stories of the towns colorful past and present.
For us, one of most interesting local tales was that of Simon Gun-a-noot, a
Gitxsan rancher and merchant, who escaped into the northern wilderness to avoid
unjust prosecution by the racially biased legal system of his day. His exploits
of avoiding capture by the Provencal authorities, the Mounties, professional
bounty hunters and even the famed Pinkerton Detective Agency were legendary. However
during his thirteen year hiatus public opinion as to of the certainty of his
guilt changed, and even though he was personally responsible for the longest
and most costly manhunt in Canadian history, in the end he was able to
surrender to authorities, have his day in court, and be cleared of all charges.
A variety of Bio-Geo-ClimaticZones were encountered while traveling through northwestern BC and the species
of plants and animals that we observed were a direct result of topography,
elevation, soil type, burn history, and weather patterns. As we drove through
we would try and identify the various plant communities around us and consider what
natural forces had produced them. It was the boreal forest’s
Spruce–Willow–Birch Zone occurring in the subalpine elevations that produced the
dazzling fall colors that enchanted us along this stretch of the Telegraph
Creek Road.
Rising above the Stikine
was the Mount Edziza volcanic complex that consisted of multiple peaks covered
by several glaciers that flowed out in all directions. This composite shield
volcano was created by several basaltic lava flows that occurred during a
series of eruptions. The summit is topped by a broad glacier filled caldera
almost 2 kilometers wide. We found that there was no vehicle access into the
surrounding Mount Edziza Provincial Park but there were a number of trails
that, though primitive, reached the base of the volcano for those hearty enoughto make the ascent. During historic times the Tahltan people came to the
mountain to mine obsidian, a hard volcanic stone that was used to make tools
and weapons. Additionally obsidian was considered a valued trade item with the
surrounding tribes due to its geographic rarity.
We had hoped to do some
hiking in the Spatsizi Plateau Wilderness Provincial Park; a vast alpine plateau
surrounded the Skeena, Omineca and Stikine Mountains, world renowned for its
breathtaking scenery and large populations of wildlife. The Spatsizi region is
also known to many as the “Sacred Headwaters” because the plateau is the shared
birthplace of four major salmon bearing rivers, the Klappan, Skeena, Nass and
Stikine. Being the province’s second largest park, and certainly one of the
most alluring, a trek into the Spatsizi had long been on our bucket list. But
when we turned down the Ealue Lake Road that runs to the trailheads on the
western side of the park we were stopped by a barricade put in place by the
Klabona Keepers Elders Society that stopped all traffic going into the area. We
chatted briefly with some of the protesters and learned that there were two principal
points of concern that constituted the focus of their occupation. First was the
continued mismanagement of game that the Tahltan people have depended on since
time immemorial for their food and survival and second was the ongoing threat
of environmental depredation to their traditional lands by several large mining
companies. Though obviously disappointed not to be able to visit the park we
let them know that we stood with them in their fight for sustainable management
and preservation of their ancestral lands.
Without further ado we
continued south on Highway 37 and camped at Kinaskan Lake Provincial Park, located
just a short ways from the trail to the top of Todagin Mountain that is the breeding
grounds for the largest herd of Stone Sheep in the province. After that the highway
crossed a high pass and the surrounding forest changed from boreal forest to
Interior Cedar-Hemlock Zone and with it the vivid fall colors became noticeably
diminished. The mountains on the western side changed too, higher and
shouldered with small hanging glaciers. When we finally turned west towards the
ocean on Highway 37A the forest changed again, this time into the Coastal Western Hemlock Zone, and the surrounding mountains rose even more dramatically
until we were greeted by the large Bear Glacier ambling down from the Cambria
Icefield.
Highway 37A ends at the towns of Stewart BC and Hyder Alaska, two sea side communities situated at the far end of a long fjord. Nestled amongst the tall Coast Mountains the two towns retain much of their historic charm from when gold and silver mining dominated the early economy, but during our visit tourism and log export seem to be the principle employers. We found that there was a lot to see and do in both towns, trails to hike, a salmon stream with a bear viewing walkway and a small but excellent museum that had sizable amount of information on the local area. The two towns are located side by side, but it’s worth noting that though no passport was needed crossing the border going into Alaska there was a customs checkpoint coming back into British Columbia.
While in Stewart we stayed at the Ripley Creek Inn, a collection of historic houses that overlook the expansive tidal marsh at the end of Portland Canal. The whole place was filled with intriguing curios from the past. The adjacent cafĂ© called the Toastworks Museum housed an impressive collection of, you guessed it, antique toasters and other less than modern kitchen appliances. Brenda’s favorite however was this unusual caterpillar tracked sedan, perfect I suppose for getting around during snowy northern winters.
It was an old mining
road just outside of Hyder that held the biggest surprise of the trip. The sign
said Salmon Glacier Road but none of the information we had gathered before leaving
home had alerted us to what we might find up this narrow dusty track. But the
higher up we climbed the more we knew that we were on to something really special.
At the crest of the road the vista of the Salmon Glacier, fifth largest in
Canada, was so unexpected and so captivating that we had to stop and ponder our
next move.
It could take months to
explore all the mountains, glaciers and alpine meadows available from this road.
And though there were few trails the open subalpine vegetation allowed for easy
off trail rambling. We found a secluded campsite with a commanding view of the
Salmon Glacier and vowed to stay as long as we could. But in the end it was the weather that was the
final arbiter of our plans, when the storm moved in we had to beat a hasty
retreat back to civilization.
Our final back road exploration was the Nisga'a Highway 113, a 158 kilometer (98 mile) alternative to the main artery that branched off at Cranberry Junction and concluded at the town of Terrace BC on Highway 16. At first it was a narrow two lane dirt road surrounded by a beautiful mature Interior Cedar Hemlock forest but by the time we entered the village of Gitlaxt'aamiks BC the road was paved and well maintained. We stopped at the Nisga'a government offices and asked directions from the staff, who were very helpful, and visited the Nisga'a museum in Lax̱g̱alts’ap BC which was excellent and give us a deeper understanding of the Nisga'a nation’s rich history and vibrant culture.
A fascinating geographic
feature along highway 113 was the Nisga,a lava beds, the result of a volcanic
eruption that occurred sometime in the mid to late 1700s. The relatively small
volcano, called the Tseax Cone, unleashed a 22.5 kilometer long swath ofdestruction as lava flowed down the valley towards the Nass River. It destroyed
two villages and killed more than 2,000 people, mostly due to volcanic gases
and poisonous smoke. Even when we visited after more than two centuries little
had grown on top of the lava other than lichens and mosses. Along the side of
the road we found a memorial to the victims that told the story of the tragedy
from the Nisga'a peoples prospective.
Long ago, two children
were playing down by the river. One child caught a salmon and slit open its
back. The child stuck sticks into the salmon's back, set them on fire, and
returned the fish to the river. The children were amused to see the salmon swim
erratically, smoke rising from its back. The other child caught a salmon and
slit open its back, inserted a piece of shale, and put it back into the river.
The salmon floated on its side, weighed down by the shale. The children laughed
at the struggling fish. An elder
happened upon the scene and warned the children, "Take care what you do.
The salmon will curse you and the Creator will respond in kind." The
ground began to tremble and shake. Nature's harmony had been upset. A scout was
sent to investigate. From the top of Gennu'axwt, he saw smoke and flames and
ran to warn the people of their fiery destiny. In panic, some villagers fled up
the mountain. Others canoed to the far side of the river but were killed by the
lava. As the people watched the lava
flow over their villages, Gwaxts'agat (a powerful supernatural being) suddenly
emerged to block the lava's advance. For days, Gwaxts'agat fought back the lava
by blowing on it with its great nose. Finally, the lava cooled and Gwaxts'agat
retreated into the mountain where it remains to this day. -from Nisga'a oral
tradition