Watson Lake & the Sign Post Forest

We arrived at the Watson Lake Tags Gas Station & RV Park at 11:15. We needed gas in the RV, so Mike pumped gas while I went inside the store to register. Since we're also camping here for the night, we got a 2¢ a liter discount on our gas purchase. We got 197.224 liters at $1.349 CAD (after discount price) a liter ($266.06 CAD) which works out to 52.12 gallons at $5.159 a gallon $268.88 US).

From Watson Lake

Our campsite cost $26.25 CAD ($26.52 US) for the night. Since we weren't assigned a specific campsite, we could just pick one & hook up. We chose site #8. We have full hook-ups with 30 amp electric and wi-fi. The "campground" is actually a large parking lot behind the convenience store and gas station.

From Watson Lake

After setting up the RV and eating lunch, we walked across the street to the Sign Post Forest. The Sign Post Forest was started by U.S. Army G.I. Carl K. Lindley, who was working on the Alaska Highway with the 341st Engineers. He was from Danville, IL and homesick, so he erected a sign pointing the way home and showing the mileage to his hometown. Since then others have visited and hung signs here, so that there are now over 70,000 signs in the Sign Post Forest.

From Watson Lake

Several years ago in an antique store we had bought a vehicle registration tag from Camp Rucker which dates from 1942-1955 when the name was changed to Fort Rucker. When we were planning this trip to Alaska, Mike said he had the perfect sign to put up at Watson Lake - the one from Camp Rucker.

We found a post to hang our sign on and Mike used his portable drill to attach it.

From Watson Lake

From Watson Lake

There are so many signs here that it is impossible to read them all.

From Watson Lake

We did find some signs from familiar places.

From Watson Lake

From Watson Lake

We stopped in at the Watson Lake Visitor Center to buy post cards of the Sign Post Forest, but they didn't have any. They said that the campground office should have some post cards, but they didn't have any. We took Tinker back to the RV and then walked down to Hougen's Department Store and we found post cards there. We bought a Pepsi at the coffee shop next door and sat outside to write out our post cards.

From Watson Lake

We've had more RVs come in here at the campground to spend the night and it looks like we might have some rain tonight. Since we don't have any cable here, we'll be watching movies on DVD tonight.

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.