May 25, 2015

We reached Watson Lake, Yukon just before lunch time. The air here is thick with smoke due to a large forest fire burning northwest of town. Watson Lake is famous for its Sign Post Forest. A homesick soldier working on the Alaskan Highway back in 1942 started the Sign Post Forest with just few signs about home and how far from home they were. Now there are over 80,000 signs from all over the world. Needless to say, we added one of our own to the forest. Watson Lake also has a museum and movie theater presentation about the Northern Lights which we plan to see once laundry has been completed. Being able to take a hot shower was pure heaven!

From this point we will leave the Alaskan Highway and head northwest on the Campbell Highway. This is a much more primitive road but is the shortest route to Dawson City. When we stopped and asked about it today, we were told it had just reopened after being closed by a washout. Before we leave tomorrow, we will be checking again to make sure no fires have closed the road. There is only one fuel stop along this route and it is a distance that will not allow for backtracking with the amount of extra fuel we can carry.

This afternoon, we plan on walking around Wye Lake here in town. Maybe we will see some wildlife. I will pass on bears though. We saw 6 more black bears this morning. They all appear to be addicted to dandelion flowers. They paid no attention to traffic nor photographers as long as those bright yellow blossoms were within close reach. We stopped at the Whirlpool Canyon rest stop on our way to Watson Lake. This overlooks Whirlpool Canyon on the Laird River. Wow, was that dramatic. The debris pile contained enormous logs, whole trees, roots and all in the corner of this huge whirlpool.

We caught this fellow in the middle of his morning dust bath!

This will probably be my last post until we reach civilization once again in Dawson City in about three or four days.  We will be detouring up the Dempster Highway as far as the northern circle before finally reaching Dawson City.  So far the adventure has been everything we could hope for and more.