Salmon Glacier and Stewart

The Largest Road Accessible Glacier In The World, Reached By A Gravel Mining Road From Stewart, British Columbia Via Hyder, Alaska A Border Crossing With No American Checkpoint · Stewart, British Columbia

Stewart sits at the head of the Portland Canal, a hundred-kilometre fjord that is also the Alaska border, and it is the most northerly ice-free port in Canada. Two kilometres away, across a line on a bridge, is Hyder, Alaska - reachable by road only through Canada, with no American border post, so you drive in unchallenged and are inspected by Canada on the way back. Beyond Hyder a gravel mining road climbs for about forty kilometres to a viewpoint above the Salmon Glacier, WHICH IS THE LARGEST GLACIER IN THE WORLD YOU CAN DRIVE TO. The view from the summit pull-out is straight down onto the ice where two arms of it meet and curve away between the peaks. On the way up, at Fish Creek, a Forest Service boardwalk overlooks a salmon run where black and grizzly bears fish in plain sight in late summer. The road is steep, narrow, unpaved and shared with mine traffic, and it is only open for a few months a year.

Salmon Glacier Road, Stewart, Cassiar Land District, Stewart, British Columbia, Canada

SEASONAL, AND THE SEASON IS SHORT. The Salmon Glacier road is generally passable from ROUGHLY LATE JUNE OR JULY UNTIL SEPTEMBER OR EARLY OCTOBER, depending entirely on snow, and it is NOT PLOUGHED OR MAINTAINED FOR VISITORS - it is an active mining road. There is no gate, no fee and no opening time; there is simply whether the road is clear. FISH CREEK WILDLIFE OBSERVATION SITE, run by the US Forest Service, operates on posted hours in the salmon season, roughly late July through early September, and charges a small day fee. STEWART ITSELF IS OPEN ALL YEAR but most visitor services run only in summer. THE BORDER: there is no US checkpoint entering Hyder, but CANADA CUSTOMS INSPECTS EVERYONE RETURNING and keeps limited hours - CARRY YOUR PASSPORT and check the crossing times before you go up.

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