The Yukon! (& I don’t mean Cornelius!)

Our first stop in the Yukon was Watson Lake and the home of the infamous Sign Post Forest. So before I discuss our stay further, my quick lesson to those of you who, (like me), don’t know how many Canadian Provences there are. The answer is… there are 10 provinces: Alberta (AB), British Columbia (BC), Manitoba (MB), New Brunswick (NB), Newfoundland and Labrador (NL), Nova Scotia (NS), Ontario (ON), Prince Edward Island (PE), Quebec (QC), and Saskatchewan (SK). And then there are 3 Canadian Territories: Northwest Territories (NT), Nunavut (NU) and Yukon (YT). The difference is basically this: constitutional power. Provinces have independent, constitutionally enshrined powers from the Constitution Act of 1867, whereas terrritories are created and delegated power by the federal government (i.e., Parliament in Ottawa). That may be too much or too little info for you, but I figured I would save you the internet search if you had that clarifying question! So we’ve been in BC since we left Washington and entered Vancouver, and now we finally earned our Yukon sticker…pic above!

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We entered the Yukon Territory on the Alaskan Highway from the south in Watson Lake. Arriving to our campground was kind of a project as this was our second GPS snafu when our maps brought us about a mile or so and about 4 turns away from our actual “campground” where we had our reservation. Luckily we were able to call the campground and get some somewhat helpful clarification. I put the word “campground” in quotes because Watson Lake RV Park was actually a big gravel area behind a gas station/convenience store that had a bunch of RV sites with power/water and a dump station and access to bathrooms, showers and laundry. It was literally right accross the street from the Sign Post Forest - but that was about all it had going for it! The reservation system was wacky and seemed unorganized and I guess I was a little thrown off by the title as I assumed the place would be a bit more scenic. But at least it was convenient and the two other campgrounds we saw in town didn’t seem to be much better.

We connected again with our new friends from Toad RIver who were also in Watson Lake area for a couple of days. They were on a mission to hang up a sign they’d had made in honor of Joan’s parents’ bakery, as her mother had always wanted to journey to Alaska. Karl and I were only too happy to help them scout out a good spot and watch Steve get the sign hung in its place of honor. I have only included a handful of pictures here of the signs in the forest, although I took about a million of them because there were SOOOO many rows and rows of signs from all over the world and with various levels of cleverness! We saw license plates from pretty much every state and road signs and clever signs. Some had been there a long long time and some were dated and had just been added. Some were made out of metal pie plates, and some plastic and some wood. Of the gazillion license plates, Karl pointed out that I probably wouldn’t see a Massachusetts plate because you have to turn in your plates in MA in order to not have to pay excise tax on them. Imagine my excitement on the last day when I found a MA trailer plate! I guess they don’t have the same rules/fines for trailers in good ole Massachuchu!! I should also mention at this point that I can’t count the number of times on this journey that I’ve gotten excited because I THOUGHT I saw a MA license plate, only to be disappointed that it was from Alberta, Canada (as they have the same red, white and blue color scheme as MA). Unlike others, we did not come prepared to the Sign Post Forest with a sign of our own. We contemplated making up something with a metal pan from the grocery store or a wooden shingle etc…but decided against it. Instead, I found a little area where people leave stickers and I left behind one of my beloved state park stickers from SC (I included that pic below as well). Oh, and I took a pic of a “license plate” that someone from Florida had created and posted. This would be the kind of thing that I totally WOULD have done if I had had the foresight and creativity to do so (although including the year would have made it this pictured sign perfect).

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One thing that was disappointing about the Watson Lake area was that it wasn’t scenic or what I envisioned from a “lake town”. Other than the Sign Post Forest it was just a strip of the Alcan with small grocery stores and some small motels and bars and not much more - oh, except for the Northern Lights Center where you could stop to learn about the Aurora Borealis in its Sci-Dome 360-degree theatre. Our friends were staying about twenty minutes down the road, so after we helped with the posting of their sign and oohed and aahhed at the forest on Sunday afternoon, we arranged to meet up again on Monday to take in the presentation at the Northern Lights Center.

We decided to try to get out steps in before the movie on Monday and luckily found an actual LAKE in Watson Lake! Wye Lake was a little hidden gem behind the main road and we had a lovely walk around the lake and learned from their signage about the various plants and trees and flowers that grow in the area and that we had been seeing on the “highway”. I’ve included a lupine lesson here since that’s what we’d been seeing the most of.

The presentation at the Northern Lights Center was a little disappointing, as it was about 75% about the solar system and 25% about the Aurora Borealis. But it was cool to learn a little more about it since it’s not clear if we’ll still be in Alaska for the Aurora Borealis “season”. The last two pictures that I posted here are of me outside of our trailer at 10:31PM, being a little weirded out by the extended daylight. On the day of this pic sunset was at 11:03PM and the following morning’s sunrise was due at 4:10AM…wrap your mind around THAT!!! I then took a pic out of my window at 11:56PM to show you the nighttime skies…

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