Stewart

From Witset we headed North again up Highway 16 until we reached Kitwanga and took Highway 37. We visited Battle hill on the way and the famous Totem poles in Kitwanga before taking a lunch break at Meziadin Provincial Park. At Meziadin Junction we then took the spectacular and bumpy Highway 37a to Stewart, the only road in and out of this small remote coastal town.

Visiting Stewart had been on our list of must visit places since we had met our now very good friends Michelle and Adam in Costa Rica. We met them one night in the hotel lounge and instantly knew that they were “our people”! We were already planning our Canada roadtrip when we met them and with their very kind offer of us using their address as our “base” they made our dream of buying and insuring our own RV a reality…..we wouldn’t be able to do this trip without their help and are ever grateful for having them in our lives.

So Stewart……just WOW! Spectacular in all aspects. A small inland “coastal” town at the head of the Portland Canal (114km long and is actually a fjord) in northwestern BC approximately 1km from the US border of Alaska, with the town of Hyder just across the border. Stewart has a typically remote town set up; beautiful individual properties leading down to a small central main street with everything you might need. Stewart is surrounded by the most beautiful mountain scenery and once through the main town you come to the estuary with marshland and glacial runoffs leading to the Portland Canal which eventually opens out to the North Pacific Ocean.

We had planned 3 nights in Stewart but soon extended this to 4 nights. Our friends had room for us to park Delta on their drive and even had full hookup (an unexpected bonus and amazing!) for us as they had had it installed when they built their beautiful home. Stewart hospitality is unrivalled, everyone we were introduced to was so warm and welcoming (even those with their pants down!) to having two strangers brought round their houses to say hi and have a drink, and another drink, and another drink…..well “”it was Tuesday” after all! What a night!

Wednesday was slow, very slow for Elizabeth! But in the afternoon the four of us went down to Adam and Michelle’s boat and set a crab pot, which later that evening had enticed several large crabs into it. Dinner that night was fresh crab, lobster and steak….divine! Thursday was a day spent out on the boat fishing; now we have never fished in our lives and we’re a little apprehensive (especially Elizabeth with seasickness loming) but we can honestly say it was the best day of our adventure so far. We raced out of the harbour down the narrow inlet with towering mountains, Canada on one side of us and America on the other, watching the glacial pale blueish grey fresh water turn to a dark blue saline sea. To say the scenery was spectacular is an understatement, we had never seen anything so beautiful. After about an hour we had reached our fishing grounds and we spent the whole day gently pootleing around catching salmon! Warwick really took to fishing and caught a decent sized pink salmon! That evening after resetting the crab pot and Adam and warwick had cleaned the fish, Elizabeth and Michelle prepped the salmon for smoking the next day by salting and sugar soaking it and then setting it dry in front of a fan.

Thursday morning Michelle and Elizabeth set the smoker to work with Alder smoke to smoke the salmon and then Michelle drove us across the US border into Hydra, an interesting looking town and to the bear viewing spot, unfortunately the salmon were not yet running (up the river to spawn) so we didn’t see a bear but it was a beautiful boardwalk. We then carried on up and up and up on a bumpy access road (we were glad Michelle was driving her immense truck and we weren’t in Delta!) through an active mine to Salmon Glacier, which sadly as many others are, is retreating, but is still of an immense scale, it is huge, beautiful and full of so many colours. We spent about 20 minutes appreciating the glacier’s beauty before we could no longer appreciate the mosquitoes attention! We drove back down into Hydra and ate the best Halibut, Shrimp and chips looking out across the Portland Canal from hydra before heading back across the border to pull up the crab pot we’d set the night before. There must have been over 50 crab in the pot! Some were too small to keep and the females all have to be thrown back into the water, we only kept the big males but there were so so many! So once back home Michelle boiled the crab and Elizabeth set to and shucked the crab with the help of Michelle and Mindy and we had the freshest, best tasting crab with garlic butter and a Indian halibut strudel (delicious!) made by Adam for dinner. After dinner Michelle showed Elizabeth how to vacuum pack the smoked salmon and cooked crab and we filled Delta’s freezer full! And Warwick enjoyed some motorcycle time with Adam.

And far too soon Saturday came around and it was time for us to leave, we spent a relaxing morning with Michelle, packed up Delta and then Adam came home from work and cooked the best crab omelette we’ve ever had for brunch…..with bacon and mushrooms on the side. The perfect end to a perfect visit. We will forever remember our Stewart visit and hope to be back there again soon. Thank you Michelle and Adam!!!