THE YUKON and Alaskan Highway!

The title of this post says it all, we finally reached the turn-around point of our adventure. Leading up to the BC/Yukon border, the scenery continued to be awe-inspiring. 

I drove a good part of this road, leading up to the border. There had evidently been a forest fire at some point. It was difficult to tell when this may have happened, but it was big, and it spanned both sides of the road. How does a fire jump the road?! As scary as this thought was, I still found some beauty in the landscape (Justin was napping at this point- sorry babe).

  

Shortly after travelling through that tree-burnt road, we made it to the border. It's basically in the middle of nowhere and that's the sign there. It almost looked new- as if you may have just crossed into the Yukon unannounced at one point not too long ago. As we pulled up, I definitely yelled out "We did it!" which promptly woke Justin up. It was a great accomplishment! We jumped out of the van for some quick photos- despite being this North, it was HOT and the flies were BIG! 

Decisions are hard... even after making a pro/con list, and contemplating how much time you have left to make it all the way back across the country. Shortly after making it to the border, we made it to this junction. We had one final chance to change our minds. Alas, we turned right. 

The other end of Highway 37
 

Following the junction and that right turn, we made our way into the town of Watson Lake. There was a bit of disappointment between both of us that we weren't going to make it to Whitehorse, nevermind Dawson City. However, Watson Lake is home to the sign post forest. We first saw this cool attraction on Departures- it's a show that originally aired on OLN and is now on Netflix. It was a small part of our inspiration to do this trip, and I highly recommend watching it. 

The Sign Post Forest was started in 1942 while the Alaskan Highway was being built, and now has over 77,000 signs! Needless to say it would take quite some time to see them all. We walked around for a while, snapping some cool pictures and reading different signs. Some of the signs are homemade, while quite a few are either old/discontinued city and town signs, or they were stolen. I don't condone stealing, but hey, if the sign ends up here, that's kind of cool. I tried to find signs of Ottawa, or anywhere near where we're from, and I found a few. 

Carleton Place, ON- 5,140km (I think)... not far from Ottawa, so just a rough estimate of how far we'd driven. 

Found and old Mississauga sign, where I grew up! 

Walking down one of the outside "rings" or rows.

Trying to capture the amount of signs.. doesn't do it justice!

We stopped by the visitor centre in search of stickers and magnets. The woman working there gave us the BEST list of places to stay between Watson Lake and Fort St. John (BC) along the Alaskan Highway. We hadn't actually planned on going south on this route; however, I have a thing about backtracking when driving, and after consulting the map, we realized this route would work for us and allow us to see more things and places. 

The Alaskan Highway DID NOT disappoint. It's a great road to drive and proved to be where we saw the most wildlife. 

One of many Bison we saw South of Watson Lake, and before Fort St. John, BC. 

A goat that was left behind by it's herd. 

Beautiful spot to stop and stretch our legs. 

Did I mention that the road is quite curvy and super close to the water at some points? Here's a picture trying to capture that. 

Back to that useful piece of paper... one of the suggestions was the Liard Hotsprings. As these pictures show, it had been raining quite a bit. We were definitely in need of a shower, but a Hot Springs sounded like an amazing substitute. Unfortunately the provincial park that house the hot springs was full, but of course there was a private one across the street with availability. Not a bad campground, but their toilets and showers were on the fritz, and I'm fairly certain there was a mosquito nest inside the broken bench on our site. We made dinner, grabbed our swimming gear and umbrellas and trekked across the street. 

This WAS NOT a disappointment. It's a bit of a walk from the highway/park entrance but even in the rain, it was worth it. This is what we expected from a hot springs- much more natural looking and outdoors. Here's one of just a few photos we took to capture this great spot. 

There was a fairly awesome thunderstorm while we were there, which added a bit to the experience. We may have waited out the storm, but we had been in the water for quite some time, so we headed back in the pouring rain. 

Needless to say, we were in the van right after returning and fast asleep. This was the night that we had a leak via our back window. The bed sheet we used to cover the back must have affected the seal and was soaked in the morning. The floor of the rear well was quite wet, as well as the bottom of our quilt. We actually didn't notice until we went to take everything down the next morning. 

This was remedied by a trip to a laundromat in Fort St. John and throwing everything in a dryer. Was it ever hot, muggy, and mosquito-y!!! Kind of reminded us of Ontario. 

All in all, this part of the trip proved somewhat challenging given all the rain, but the Hot Springs were definitely a redeeming factor and so worth the $5! We also later heard that Munch Lake Provincial Park which is south of the hot springs is a great park- another for the "next time" list. 

That's it for now!

J & S