Alaskan Adventure: Day 31 &32. It’s been raining a lot. Steady sprinkles, not downpours. Not complaining as we hear about heavy rains and flooding where our friends back in Banff/Canmore area are camping! Fort Nelson to Liard River Hot Springs was 189 miles. Hot Springs to Watson Lake was 144 miles. Almost all of this has been in British Columbia traveling NorthWest. Watson Lake is very close to the Yukon Territory boarder so we will be in the YT soon. There are some wildfires in Canada but most are north of us and several driving hours away. We were surprised to start seeing and smelling smoke at we got into Fort Nelson. It was pretty bad in the campground but didn’t deter the mosquitoes at all. By morning the wildfire smoke had cleared as we left our campground but the mosquitoes were still crazy. We drove awhile in the rain eager to get to what was advertised as “the best cinnamon buns in Canada” at Testa River Lodge.
This huge, hot, gooey, bun was awesome. We ordered one bun and one breakfast plate to share. We were full after the bun. Then the breakfast arrived…
They smoke these enormous slabs of bacon here. It was delicious but we could not eat it all. We waddled out in the rain and traveled on. The rain, the wood burning stove for heat on a chilly forest mountain morning will be a good memory. This place is at Historic Mile 375 Alaska Highway. We drove for about 1 1/2 hours of nothing but forest to get here. Power is all by generator. After eating we drove another couple hours of nothing but forest before getting to Liard River Hot Springs. No towns, no houses or cabins, no gas stations or gift shops, there is nothing but forest (and whatever is living in there) for hundreds of miles. The Alaskan Highway was built through the wilderness and it is still wilderness.
Short video driving in the rain and see a bear along the road.
Beautiful turquoise blue rivers, clouds drifting through the mountains, beautiful wild country.
Mama and baby moose ran across in front of us as we were pulling off to let a semi blow past.
The landscape is always changing. This is a panorama shot of Cuomo Lake. The color of the lake is from copper oxide washing into the lake from surrounding mountains.
A herd of Wood Bison hanging out along the road. At Custer State Park there are herds of buffalo you can drive through and they have a large area to roam but they are fenced in. These are totally free ranging. Some are radio tagged so they can keep track of where they are but they can go anywhere.
We were able to pull off and get a photo of this herd of Wood Bison with some calfs.
The Wood Bison herd as we drove past.
This is the Liard River Bridge. It is the only original steel suspension bridge remaining on the Alaskan Highway. It was built in 1943 and much of the steel came from the infamous Tacoma Narrows Bridge. That bridge, nicknamed “Galloping Gertie” collapsed in 1940.
Another bear along the road. A grizzly bear I think? It was apparently very hungry. Whatever it was grazing on must have been good because it would not pick it’s head up to look around. This was taken through the window. I did not get out of the RV.
Just another pic of the road. I liked the mix of dark pine trees in the blue/gray leaves of the trees.
We arrived at Watson Lake to fill up with gas and visit the weirdest tourist attraction yet; The Sign Post Forest. I had heard about this but was overwhelmed with how big it was!
This is our Adventure Trek group beginning to assemble for a group photo.
This is “our sign”. It is screwed into the base of a pine tree. Good luck finding it.
Another shot showing a bit more surrounding area.
But if you are ever in Watson Lake looking for our sign. Try asking around for “Hillary”. If you can locate Hillary you can find our sign. Our sign is at the bottom of the tree behind the Hillary tree.
Random panorama shot. It is hard to understand how large this forest of sign posts extends so I tried taking a video.
The video is just a small portion of the “forest”.
In the “small world” category of interesting trivia, this sign post forest was unintentionally started by Private Carl K. Lindley of Danville, Illinois. This is for you Phil and Barb with your Danville roots!
The original Danville Illinois sign that started all this.
While I was walking around taking pictures, Becky was looking for a sign mounted last summer by someone whose quilt blog she follows and enjoys (Cat Patches). I was very surprised that she found it! At last count there are 126,490 signs. That is not a needle in a haystack but it seems close. I was really happy I found Becky.
Here’s a link to Cat Patches blog post about this sign: https://catpatches.blogspot.com/search?q=sign+post
After the Sign Post Forest we visited the Watson Lake Visitors Center and The Northern Lights Centre (across the street from the Sign Post Forest). One exhibit showed the year-to-year growth of the “sign forest”, another showed how creation is viewed by local tribes. We watched a couple multi-media presentations on the Northern Lights in a large domed room (similar to a planetarium).
Driving back to the campground we drove through snow on the road that had fallen while we were in town. Low temps at night here have been in low 40’s, high daytime temps have been upper 50’s, lower 60’s. Nice when the sun is out, chilly when it’s cloudy.
Today’s favorite Bible verse: Mark 10: 32-34
They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him. “We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.”
DADart Photography 