Stewart sits at the head of the Portland Canal, a long saltwater fjord on the British Columbia-Alaska border. It is small, wet, and hemmed in by mountains so steep that the town feels like it has been squeezed into the last flat ground before the icefields begin.
The reason to come is the setting. Highway 37A drops past Bear Glacier, then ends in Stewart a few minutes from Hyder, Alaska. From there, a rough road leads past Fish Creek Wildlife Observation Site toward Salmon Glacier, one of the great road-accessible glacier viewpoints in North America.
Stewart itself is quiet: a grid of houses, a small visitor centre, old mining-town traces, and a good estuary boardwalk for watching birds and weather move across the flats. It works best for travellers already on the Stewart-Cassiar Highway who can spare a night or two. The detour is long, but the mountain scenery makes it feel like a reward rather than an errand.