Day 15: Fort Nelson to Watson Lake

In Which Bob & Lisa Leave Their Mark on the Signpost Forest


We Added our Sign to the Signpost Forest in Watson Lake YT

We began our day happily leaving the nothing town of Fort Nelson bright and early, and hitting the road for Watson Lake. (Also pretty much a nothing town, but not quite as worn down.)  We are staying in a basic little cabin, which means a fine place to rest our heads, but not a spot for great bandwidth.  So, this post will be heavy on pictures and light on video.

Our drive from Fort Nelson to Watson Lake was about 320 miles on the Alaska Highway.  The views were quite a bit better for this drive than the last one. Here is one shot from the drive.

Drive from Fort Nelson, BC to Watson Lake, YT

Yes, that is a U-Haul in front of us.  It is being driven by a guy Bob met at breakfast this morning, due to the VT logo on his luggage tag.  The guy is moving for work from Langley to Anchorage and we ran into him again at the cinnamon bun stop along our route, and again at the first of four (Yes 4!!!) construction zones where we waited for a Pilot car to take us through a one lane road.  I was driving for all of these today (of course!).

We also saw lots of wildlife on the road-- including two bears, lots of stoned sheep (that is Stone Sheep, but you never know...) and lots of bison.  In fact, we saw far more bison on this road than we did when we drove through the National Bison Reserve in Montana-- go figure.

This video provides a few of the highlights:



And these are a view stills of the guys we encountered along the way (sorry, no stills of the bears):

Stoned Goats (or just Stone Goats...not sure how to tell)


Stone Goat with Shadow


Stoned Goat Eats Stones

Smiling Stoned Goat (in profile)


A really big bison


A really big bison with a really little bison


We pulled into Watson Lake at about 4PM and checked into our little cabin on the side of the road.  It isn't much, but it is walking distance to everything in town (which isn't hard, because town is about a half mile long).

Our first stop was the world famous Watson Lake Signpost Forest.  We looked around for signs from places we knew, and for some we knew were there like a license plate from Bob's Uncle and a sign to Blacksburg placed by a traveling Hokie, but couldn't fine one.

We did find another couple there who were from Conifer-- yes really--and headed home.  They were stuck in Watson Lake for a week while their van was being repaired and were just hanging out at the Signpost Forrest killing time.  Small World!

We had to commemorate our trip by adding our own sign to the forest.  That's it in the main post picture.

Here we are standing under it.

Bob and Lisa standing under their sign in the Signpost Forest

And, if you're ever in the Signpost Forest, you can use this location finder to track down our sign.  Just look for the big red tractor with a shovel.

Find our sign in the Signpost Forest in this row


After the forest we had some unremarkable but eminently edible dinner, and then headed over to the Northern Lights Center, Watson Lake's other big attraction.  We saw an Imax-like move of local wildlife and one on the Aurora Borealis.  Both were fine, but I think we missed the real experience because we were unlucky enough to visit when the ceiling projector was broken, so we got a front view only.  Had the Norther Lights been splashed across the ceiling in a 360 degree view, I imagine the show would have been quite spectacular.  Oh well.

We then headed back to the cabin to write and post this blog.  Tomorrow we head off to Whitehorse for a 3 day stay-- and a break from driving.

Until then...

--Lisa





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