Hyder is a
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
in
Prince of Wales–Hyder Census Area, Alaska, United States. The population was 48 at the 2020 census, down from 87 in 2010.
Hyder is accessible by road only from
Stewart,
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
. It is popular with motorists wishing to visit Alaska without driving the length of the
Alaska Highway. Hyder has no direct access to any Alaskan road. It is the southernmost community in the state that can be reached via car (others can be reached only by boat or plane). Hyder is Alaska's easternmost community.
Geography
Hyder is located at (55.941442, -130.054504),
at the end of the
land border between Alaska and British Columbia and at the head of the
Portland Canal
Portland Canal is an arm of Portland Inlet, one of the principal inlets of the British Columbia Coast. It is approximately long. The Portland Canal forms part of the border between southeastern Alaska and British Columbia. The name of the enti ...
, a long fjord which forms a portion of the border at the southeastern edge of the
Alaska Panhandle
Southeast Alaska, often abbreviated to southeast or southeastern, and sometimes called the Alaska(n) panhandle, is the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Alaska, bordered to the east and north by the northern half of the Canadian provi ...
. It sits about from
Stewart, British Columbia, by road, and from
Ketchikan by air.
According to the
U.S. Census Bureau, the census-designated place (CDP) has a total area of , all land.
Climate
Hyder has a fairly typical Southeastern Alaskan
oceanic climate
An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate or maritime climate, is the temperate climate sub-type in Köppen climate classification, Köppen classification represented as ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of co ...
(
Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...
''Cfb'', borderline ''
Dfb''), although using the coldest-month isotherm it has an extremely wet and ocean-moderated version of a warm-summer
humid continental climate
A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers, and cold ...
(
Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...
''Dfb'') similar to that of
Haines although substantially wetter.
Demographics
Hyder first appeared on the 1920 U.S. Census as an unincorporated village. It was chosen as the central part of its same-named census-designated place (CDP) in 1980.
As of the
census
A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...
of 2000, there were 97 people, 47 households, and 25 families residing in the CDP. The population density was . There were 72 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the CDP was 93
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, and 4 from two or more races. There was 1
Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There were 47 households, out of which 9 had children under the age of 18 living with them, 24 were married couples living together, 1 had a female householder with no husband present, and 21 were non-families. 19 of all households were made up of individuals, and 3 had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.06 and the average family size was 2.81.
In the CDP, the population was spread out, with 18 under 18, 11 from 18 to 24, 16 from 25 to 44, 45 from 45 to 64, and 7 who were 65 or older. The median age was 46 years. There were 44 females and 53 males, of them 34 females were age 18 and over, as were 45 males.
The median income for a household in the CDP was $11,719, and the median income for a family was $30,500. Males had a median income of $56,250 versus $13,750 for females. The
per capita income
Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year.
In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...
for the CDP was $11,491. There were 44.4% of families and 54.1% of the population living below the
poverty line
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...
, including 81.0% under 18, and 50.0% over 64.
Transportation
Stewart, British Columbia, immediately borders Hyder and is accessible by road via International Street. Outside of the town site, NFD-88 heads in a northerly direction winding through the
Tongass National Forest, and enters the outer extent of Stewart's municipal limits continuing as Granduc Road. There are few local roads, and no roads connect Hyder to any other Alaskan communities, except through Canada. The
AMHS ferry that once connected Hyder to
Ketchikan stopped running in the 1990s, leaving the
Taquan Air
Taquan Air is the operating name for Venture Travel, LLC, an American regional airline headquartered in Ketchikan, a city in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Alaska. It operates domestic scheduled passenger and charter services. ...
floatplane
A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...
that arrives twice a week with
U.S. Mail at
Hyder Seaplane Base as the only direct public transportation between Hyder and the rest of Alaska.
[
]
Local services
There are few local services in town:
*
US Postal Service
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal serv ...
*
US Forest Service information kiosk and observation site
* Hyder Community Association, home to a museum, information center and library
Public utilities
Hyder's public utilities are imported from Canada.
Electricity is maintained by a subsidiary of BC Hydro, the Tongass Power and Light Company as part of a long-term contract with the town. While most of Alaska is in
area code 907
Area code 907 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the U.S. state of Alaska, with the exception of the small southeastern community of Hyder, which is served by the Canadian overlay complex 236/250/257/672/7 ...
, Hyder shares the Stewart 749 exchange in
area code 236, 636 in
area code 250
Area code 250 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the Canadian province of British Columbia outside the Lower Mainland, including Vancouver Island–home to the provincial capital, Victoria–and the province's ...
, and 794 in
area code 778.
Public safety
Alaska State Troopers occasionally patrol the town, but do not have a base there.
In 1996, a fire consumed the community building which contained the library, post office and fire hall.
The Hyder Volunteer Fire Department was originally formed in 1921. The department was reestablished an
registered with the Alaska Department of Public Safetyin 2023 after a 25 year absence. There is currently no emergency medical services established yet in Hyder.
A
Canada Border Services Agency
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA; , ''ASFC'') is a federal law enforcement agency that is responsible for border guard, border control (i.e. protection and surveillance), immigration enforcement, and Customs, customs services in Canada.
...
customs
Customs is an authority or Government agency, agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling International trade, the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out ...
post is on the only connecting road out of Hyder and there is no complementary American border patrol presence.
History
The
Nisga'a, who lived around the
Nass River, called the head of Portland Canal "Skam-A-Kounst," meaning ''safe place'', probably because it served them as a retreat from the harassment of the
Haidas on the coast.
[ They traveled in the area seasonally to pick berries.
The area around the Portland Canal was explored in 1896 by Captain D.D. Gaillard of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.]
In 1898, gold and silver lodes were discovered in the region, mainly on the Canadian side, in the upper Salmon River basin. The Stewart brothers, for whom the British Columbia town
A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city.
The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...
was named, arrived in 1902.
Hyder was established in 1907 as "Portland City", after the canal. In 1914, when the US Post Office Department told residents that there were many U.S. communities named Portland, it was renamed ''Hyder'', after Frederick Hyder, a Canadian mining engineer who envisioned a bright future for the area. Hyder was the only practical point of access to the silver mines in Canada; the community became the port, supply point, and post office for miners by 1917. Hyder's boom years were the 1920s, when the Riverside Mine on the U.S. side extracted gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, and tungsten. The mine operated from 1924 to 1950.
In 1928, the Hyder business district was consumed by fire.[ By 1956 all significant mining had ceased, except for the Granduc Mine on the Canadian side, which operated until 1984 and 2010 to present. Westmin Resources Ltd operated a gold and silver mine on the Canadian side in Premier, British Columbia, but is not currently active.
]
Culture
Hyder is accessible by highway from Stewart, which connects with the British Columbia highway system. In the mid-2010s, Hyder residents said that more than 100,000 tourists came to Hyder annually. It is the location of the annual Hyder Seek gathering of long-distance motorcyclists who travel from all over North America each Memorial Day weekend. It became popular with long-distance motorcycle riders in 1998, when author Ron Ayres set a record of riding to the contiguous 48 states in six days. Ayres went on to add to the 48-state record by continuing on to Hyder to establish a new 49-state record of 7 days, 0 hours and 20 minutes. Ayres named the new long distance ride the "48 Plus" and it has become popular with members of the long-distance motorcycle riding Iron Butt Association.[ Hyder was the starting point of the 2014 coast-to-coast Scooter Cannonball Run, which ended in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Because of its accessible proximity to Stewart, and its isolation from other communities in Alaska, Hyder has many commonalities with its Canadian neighbor, with both American and Canadian holidays observed,] and a shared international Chamber of Commerce. It is the only place in Alaska not to use the 907 area code, instead using British Columbia's 250. Although Hyder is officially in the Alaska Time Zone, residents set their clocks to British Columbia's Pacific Time. Both American and Canadian currency are accepted, except by the U.S. Post Office, which only accepts U.S. dollars.
A local tradition is known as being "Hyderized", with two of the town's bars issuing certificates to patrons who consume a shot of 151 proof (75.5% alcohol) Everclear.
Education
Southeast Island School District operates the Hyder School.
Children who live in Hyder have attended the Bear Valley School in Stewart, but Hyder has school when the community meets the Alaska minimum of 10 children for the state to provide a teacher.
Trivia
At the border crossing to Stewart, there is a humorous imitation of a sign at the historic Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
border crossing Checkpoint Charlie
Checkpoint Charlie (or "Checkpoint C") was the Western Bloc, Western Bloc's name for the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War (1947–1991), becoming a symbol of the Cold War, representin ...
with the inscription "You are leaving the American Sector" in English, French, and German, as well as a sign reading "Eastern Sektor". The sign was erected in 2015 as a protest after the Canadian administration announced plans to close the border control at night.
Hyder uses the area codes of Stewart, British Columbia, which are 236, 250, 672, and 778.[https://www.nanpa.com/sites/default/files/planning_letters/PL-515.pdf]
See also
* Hyder–Stewart Border Crossing
* Alaska boundary dispute
* Storehouse No. 4
References
External links
Fish Creek Wildlife Observation Site
* (requires JavaScript)
{{Authority control
Border irregularities of the United States
Census-designated places in Alaska
Census-designated places in Prince of Wales–Hyder Census Area, Alaska
Census-designated places in Unorganized Borough, Alaska
Mining communities in Alaska
Populated coastal places in Alaska on the Pacific Ocean
Exclaves in the United States