Coal River to Watson Lake

We left Coal River at 9:15 and headed north to Watson Lake in the Yukon Territory.

We hadn't traveled very far when we saw a bison

From Coal River to Watson Lake

and a little farther on we startled a couple of moose alongside the highway. Fortunately they ran away from the highway instead of crossing in front of us.

From Coal River to Watson Lake

The Alaska Highway crosses back and forth over the British Columbia and Yukon Territory borders 6 times before reaching the official border. We didn't see any territory markers at any of the crossings.

From Coal River to Watson Lake

For the last portion of the Alaska Highway in British Columbia we traveled alongside the Liard River.

From Coal River to Watson Lake

Every so often we would catch glimpses of the original route of the Alaska Highway.

From Coal River to Watson Lake

We saw another bison this morning

From Coal River to Watson Lake

and a little later this black bear.

From Coal River to Watson Lake

Then 15 minutes later we saw this black bear (even though he's brown, he's still a black bear)near the highway.

From Coal River to Watson Lake

We saw this road sweeper going along on the shoulder of the highway sweeping the gravel.

From Coal River to Watson Lake

A little before 10:00 we made the final crossing into the Yukon Territory. The only sign marking the border was this one for British Columbia that Mike took a photo of after we passed it.

From Coal River to Watson Lake

We found this sign for the Yukon Territory about 10 minutes after we had crossed the border.

From Coal River to Watson Lake

When we were 6 miles south of Watson Lake we encountered more road construction. This time we had to wait for a "lead vehicle" to lead us through the construction area.

From Coal River to Watson Lake

Along the way we passed by the Watson Lake Cemetery and most of the grave markers that we saw were white crosses.

From Coal River to Watson Lake

The road construction crew was spraying fresh oil on top of the new gravel.

From Coal River to Watson Lake

Mike drove real slow through the construction area and kept a reasonable distance from the truck driving in front of us so we wouldn't get hit with any loose rocks.

From Coal River to Watson Lake

You can see how dusty it is driving on the gravel roads here.

From Coal River to Watson Lake

We arrived in Watson Lake a little after 11:00. We had a short driving day - only 94 miles. We drove past the Sign Post Forest on our way to the campground.

From Watson Lake

We're staying here to add a sign to the Sign Post Forest and I'm going to write a separate post for that.