Things to do in Hyder, Alaska.
After a long road trip through British Columbia, we made it to our final destination: Hyder, Alaska.
Hyder, “the friendliest ghost town in Alaska,” is about a 20 hour drive from Seattle and is the only town in Alaska that’s accessible by road from British Columbia. We made the long journey knowing very well that there were few things to do in Hyder, Alaska, and, really, that the only reason to go is to say you went.
We were surprised, when we reached the border, that we didn’t have to stop at customs to roll into the new town and new country we were entering from Canada. No one, nothing, was there to greet us other than the large banner hanging over the border that proclaimed “Welcome to Hyder, Alaska.”
Hyder itself is a beautiful oasis, despite having nothing really going on.
We stopped for a while and took photos outside of the welcome sign.
We stopped at the Glacier Inn bar to get Hyderized. Getting hyderized means they give you a pretty big shot of 150 proof everclear. I went from OK to drunk to sick in about 10 seconds. I may have kind of thrown it up 20 minutes later. (I’m a lightweight, OK?) I felt it was more logical to do it there in the bathroom than to wait until I got car sick on the road…. We chilled at the bar for a while to recover. (Learn more about getting Hyderized in Hyder here.)
There was a bear sighting right outside but we missed it.
After recovering, we went to the post office which was kind of awesome in the way that it was thoroughly American and thoroughly not.
We made our way to Fish Creek to look for more bears but alas we saw none than went to the opposite end of town and checked out the breathtaking mountain views from the “pier.”
We may have travelled long and far to reach a destination we only stayed at for three hours, but it was worth every minute and every mile. Driving to Hyder, Alaska was surely a road trip that will be very, very tough to beat…but that is not to say I won’t try!
More photos of things to do in Hyder, Alaska:
