Summer Travel Map

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

On to Watson Lake

June 16, 2009
Watson Lake, Yukon Territory

Today, we continued our push toward Alaska. We're almost half way along the Alaska Highway at this point. We left Liard Hot Springs on schedule and pressed on through some morning rain toward Watson Lake. Along the way we saw only one black bear today; a slow day for the wildlife.

We found a fuel/dump stop as we entered town, and had an unexpected bonus: C$.03/litre off for paying with cash. As it turned out, paying with cash was the only option available since the credit/debit card machines were down all over town. Apparently, when a line gets cut 800 miles to the south in Grande Prairie, all the phones go out. Sounds like a bit of redundancy is needed. Hope they have a disaster recovery/business continuity plan. Sorry, I gave that up years ago...

Anyway, once in Watson Lake, we toured the big tourist draw, the "Signpost Forest". Started by a homesick GI during the construction on the Alaska Highway in 1942, it's grown to thousands of signs. I thought about adding one, but didn't have the time (or maybe the inspiration?) to acquire/create and bring one. We had a good time looking through the ones already there, though. It would probably take several days to search through all of them to look for familiar places; we had about an hour. Maybe next time. We did find a few familiar things, though; check the pictures link at the end of this post.

After the "forest", we went to the Northern Lights Centre, a tourist rip-off if there ever was one. Instead of an informative program on the Lights, we saw a UK-produced video on astronauts (right - what's that to do with the Northern Lights?) and a locally-produced video on the Lights which was content-light (over half of the "film" was a slideshow of pictures of the Lights). Definitely not worth the C$9+tax to get in. OK music to accompany the slideshow and a good chance for a nap, but not something we'd recommend paying for...

We were also scorched at today's designated stopping point with a series of "No Camping or Overnight Parking" signs at the turnouts/rest areas. We're spoiled by the ability in British Columbia and Alberta to find a nice, free spot for the night in each town. This really burns me - how can you have a rest area where you can't rest? Not wanting to chance being rousted in the night - or worse, ticketed - we pushed on for another 20 miles and found a place that was sign-free to stop. It doesn't mean we'll be OK, I suppose, but we're in for the night at this point.

Click here for today's pictures.

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