Fire, Bears, Dogs, Stewart, The Bar 8-13-10

We got up early yet again and headed toward our junction with 37, the Cassiar Highway. We ended up in a big line of RV's and cars, and other such things waiting to be allowed on the highway due to a forrest fire. We could already see the smoke, and apparently they'd just re-opened the highway.

After finally getting through the burnt forrest and smelling a lot of strong smoke as it came through the car, we got to see a lot of black bears. We even got pictures of some cubs! It was a beautiful drive.

We stopped at a rest area that was pretty much in the middle of nowhere to use the restroom. At the rest area, two dogs approached us with no collars. They were very sweet. One was a chocolate lab, and the other was some kind of a mix puppy. We looked for their owners, and since we didn't see anyone, we put them in the back of the car with Eddy to take to the next town, figuring someone had abandoned them there. We left a note at the rest area and a note on a nearby door just in case. Eventually we found a conservation officer, and he said he'd picked up two puppies very similar to the one we'd found a couple months before, and that he'd found out they live in a cabin around there. He said we should take them back.

We hesitantly took the two dogs back (with several conversations about taking them home with us) and took them down a trail behind the rest area to see if we could locate the cabin. We didn't see anything, but it appeared the dogs knew where they were going, as they quickly disappeared into the forrest. We went back to the car and started loading up, thinking they'd gone home, when they reappeared, trotted across the parking lot, and went back into the woods again. At that point, we hated to leave them, but we weren't really sure what else we could do.

We headed on to Stewart, BC for the "world famous bear-viewing." When we got out of the car, we found a festival taking place, which had live music that drew us to it. It turned out to be the annual Bear Festival. We walked around the town for a while, set up our tent in the campground, and went to "The Bar." It turned out to be a very friendly environment, with one of the locals buying us several shots. We left in a drunken state and ended up at the tent for the night. We LOVE Stewart!