From Stewart/Hyder to Smithers--Aug. 4th

I have not been able to blog since the 4th and it is now the 8th and I am writing this from my notes so it won't be as good, sorry. We left for Smithers today and it was about 57* and slightly foggy. There was a mist or fog over the water which was neat looking and the sun is coming up later and going down earlier now. The days are shortening up north. One of the things most of us just couldn't get enough of was the glaciers and we were seeing them again as we left Stewart. I never knew there were so many. We went over the Nass River Bridge across the gorge and it was over 400' down--what a sight.

We saw a black bear crossing the road and the lakes and small ponds are so beautiful but you just can't swim in them because it is too cold--it is such a shame to have all this water and not be able to use it except to fish and boat for fishing. We took a side road and went to this little native community called Gitanyoul. It has one of the largest concentration of standing totem poles in British Columbia (28). They are not all painted and everything like you see because they are years and years old and the paint is gone but they are still quite a sight and each so different. The museum was closed but we are glad we stopped. One or two others stopped but all they could do was complain to our tail gunner, who told us about it, that the museum was closed. Some people just can't appreciate things. Many of the coaches in the group never stopped to see any things along the way unless it was right beside the road. They just drove from point A to point B each day and then went on our guided tours and some sightseeing around the towns. There was another native village that we couldn't stop at named Kitwanga. Originally they lived on "the grease trail" called that because they were a trading people and traded their candlefish oil for other things. We also stopped at the town of Old Hazelton which had a lot of old buildings and ate at "The Trading Post Cafe" which had just opened in July--lovely building with lots of old pictures of the area and the people with captions, a wheel out of a ship, stools at the bar and holding up the bar were rifles(very interesting) and the food was delicious. After we left some of the others went there and also enjoyed it. Also there was a reproduced Ksan native village. While the boys slept Dee and I went in to take a tour of the buildings and it was really interesting. We got to go in all five buildings and inside there were items appropriate to what it was used for and they played an audio which talked about it. Near the end of our driving we stopped along the road at Mouricetown by the river to see natives fishing using their huge round nets and weirs.

We came out into farm country and it was such a surprise and a joy to see something that was familiar. The wilderness was spectacular but to finally see something you could put your mind around was really nice. We camped at Riverside Golf and RV Park and had our briefing for the next day.