Hot Springs to Whitehorse

We continued to drive through outragiously gorgeous country when we left the hotsprings. We saw so many bears that I didn't even take pictures of them. We also saw many bison. I am not sure why the signs all warn of buffalo crossings, when there are not buffalo, but many bison.

We stopped in Watson Lake to see the Sign Post Forest.  It is so big and has so many signs that you really can't take a picture that shows its size.  It began when the army was building the road and a few men put up a post with signs showing their home towns and the distance to them.  And people just kept adding signs and more signs.  Most of them are real signs that have been stollen, borrowed, relocated from places all over the world in many, many languages.  In the middle is some machinery left behind by the army.  It goes on and on.

We camped one night outside of Watson Lake in a campground with internet connection, supposedly.  It was so bad, that we really couldn't call anyone, upload pictures or do much else.  The campground only had one sewer drain, and when I went fishing, I found that it drained into the river. Major yuck!  It snowed for awhile but didn't stick.  It also rained and was very windy and cold.  We think that because the ground is permafrost except for the top layer that septic systems aren't possible.  I got up early in the morning and went fishing and caught my limit of 2.

The road goes into Yukon Territories and back to British Columbia several times.  The road had many frost heaves and we are learning how truly large they can be.  It made for slow going but we enjoyed our drive to Whitehorse.  We are camped at a pretty campground with full hookups.  I can even watch junk TV which I haven't done much of.  We talked to a local man who was referring to causing himself problems as throwing bear traps at his legs.  The accents are thick, eh?  We tried to find a place to get our dog Bernie a hair cut, and found that the three groomers in the area are so booked up that there is no way - so I got a haircut instead.  We picked up mail also.

We went to a Beringia Museum and learned about animals that roamed Alaska and the Yukon during the ice age. It is interesting that most of the fossils and carcasses that are found, are found in the process of gold mining.  One form of mining uses sprayed water to defrost the permafrost, and in that process several frozen carcasses have been found.  Next, we went to a transportation museum that presented all forms of transportation in the Yukon.  It is interesting that motorized transportation really isn't all that old here.  Most forms didn't get here until the 1930s.    Tomorrow we will head towards Dawson City.

OK - the fish aren't huge, but they were delicious!