Hyder Alaska is Right at the very end of the land border of Alaska and Canada. Right down there on the southern tip. And it’s got to be the coolest little town I’ve visited in a very long time.
This trip was a great reminder to embrace the unexpected. I’m going to keep it brief to avoid a big wordy recap of every day, but I hope this post serves to convince at least ONE PERSON to just go with the flow on their next trip and embrace the unexpected.
This one started out the morning after 2 The Border 2024. Not even 24 hours after we finished up the second annual rally. I thought it would be a good idea to take off for a week or two. I didn’t even have a real “plan” by my normal standards. I wasn’t even sure how many days I would be gone. But we loaded up and headed north.
If you’ve read some of my previous posts you’ll know I gave up trying to work around the weather long ago. It always rains…..always. Well this trip included 4 other riders who had not been to Canada before so as we started seeing dark clouds on the horizon on day one there was quite a lot of chatter on the intercom about “Should we put on rain gear?” “Should we pull over and wait it out?” “Should we try to ride out from under it?” “Has anyone looked at the forecast?”. My reply to every question was “It always rains.” I think they were getting annoyed after a while. We did, in fact, get rained on…..and no one died….no one melted into a puddle like the wicked witch. We just rode our motorcycles and were wet. By day two the questions stopped and we were in that blissful place where everyone had accepted that it would eventually rain but it’s not a big deal. Once you stop focusing on the weather you can spend more time enjoying everything else.
A couple days into the trip I realized that the next day we would be crossing back into the USA……on the 4th of July! We did not plan that at all, it just happened. With all the chaos of the rally, I had basically forgotten about the 4th of July. The following morning we loaded up and headed up the Cassiar highway towards Stewart and Hyder. It was a BEAUTIFUL day.
We pulled up to Hyder right as the festivities were getting started and had THE COOLEST evening. I did not research the town so we didn’t know what to expect or what to go see. What we found was an awesome little town that blended right into the wilderness. The road that goes through town just keeps heading north and eventually dead-ends at a glacier. We did go up to the bear observation boardwalk but saw no bears so we went back to town. I won’t get bogged down explaining everything. It was a freaking blast though. We got to party with the tiny town of about 70 people and their Canadian neighbors from the town of Stewart. I even mistakenly ended up riding my bike in the parade! I was also detained for 30 minutes at the border for bringing CBD hand cream across the boarder….which, I was informed, is technically international drug smuggling. But it turned out to not be that big of a deal.
And it was all completely unexpected. No plans…..just experiences.
A few days later I realized that my rear tire was getting alarmingly low on tread and made the tough decision to head home the way we had come because it was more direct than the loosely planned route. I hated the idea of splitting up early and missing the rest of the route but my tire was almost toast and I didn’t have time or money to get a new one mid-trip. So I headed east and the rest of the gang headed south. That landed me in Jasper Alberta for the night.
While walking around town that evening I saw a familiar face in a gift shop and had to do a double take. It was one of the attendees from the rally! We were both very surprised at the coincidence and talked for a few minutes. As we were talking about the rally an employee in the store overheard us and started asking about bikes and where the rally was. I gave him all the info and pointed him to the website. Turns out he lives close to the border and is going to join next year! It was the craziest encounter. And it only happened because I had to go with the flow and change plans.
Luckily I made it home with my rear tire intact. I got every single penny out of that one though.
I’m sure those things don’t mean much to a reader but they made some great memories for me. I promise you that embracing the unexpected vs fighting to avoid the unexpected will always make better memories.
Heres some more pictures or whatever.
And here’s a video my phone made.