Day 34: Alaska Highway - Mile 442 to Mile 662

May 18/2014

This morning was another beautiful day in the Rocky Mountains. Sadly it was time for us to leave Muncho Lake. We really enjoyed our stay and would love to visit again sometime. There are still hikes to be done. While we were still in the Muncho Lake Provincial Park we saw another caribou. As we headed out this morning we noticed that our Sirius/XM radio was loosing signal at times and by the end of the day we had no signal. We will miss our satellite radio for the next few months. No satellite radio or TV, no cell phone and again today, no internet. Stone Age!! However, tomorrow we plan to be in Whitehorse, YT before bedtime and there are two Tim Horton's there so we will get our fix again tomorrow.

As we left Muncho Park, the Alaska Highway follows the course of the Trout River. Beautiful River! There were caution signs about the Woodland Bison but all we saw was evidence they had been there. We noticed the the topography changed significantly about 10-15 miles from the park. No snow, and much greener. The mountains covered by all different shades of green.

Awesome! Then we started seeing the Bison. And we saw lots of bison before the day was over.  There are numerous warnings about driving this stretch of the highway at night because the bison like to get in the road and sometimes lie down and go to sleep there.

 

 

 

Some bison even knew where they should be

We stopped at one pullout by the river to take some pictures and let Scout have a walk and 2 large bison came down the side of the road behind us. Fortunately they were on the opposite side and Scout just watched them very carefully but never barked.

The first point of interest today was Liard Hot Springs. The springs are in a Provincial Park and are a very popular stop for Alaska travelers. There were also a lot of locals there today because of the long holiday weekend in Canada. The springs are open year round and we have seen some great pictures of people in the springs with all the surrounding area in ice and snow. The water didn't feel warm enough to us that we would want to be there in the winter. The boardwalk to the springs goes through the wetlands where there are 14 orchid species. Very nice.

Beautiful natural feature at Liard Hot Springs

Shortly after leaving the springs we saw another herd of bison and then just down the way a black bear eating dandelions beside the road. We wonder if he was really more interested in the bison calves he was ambling toward.

After lunch we crossed into the Yukon Territory.

The road is noticeably rougher except in the town of Watson Lake where it was the best road we have driven on in several days. Before arriving in Watson Lake we saw another large black bear and also elk.

On arriving at Watson Lake we were very disappointed to find that basically everything was closed for the holiday weekend. Quite surprising to us. The Northern Lights Centre which we were particularly interested in seeing will reopen for a show at 7:30 tomorrow night. It is the only planetarium in North America featuring the science of the northern lights – aurora borealis. Bummer!! We will try to do this on the way home. We did visit the sign post forest at Watson Lake. This is the attraction the brings most people to Watson Lake. The first sign was placed by a Army soldier when he was working on the construction of the Alaska Highway in 1942. The story is that he was homesick and posted a sign pointing toward his home town with the mileage. Others added their hometown signs and now there are over 80,000 signs from across the world. .

Click to enlarge

 In walking around we spotted numerous signs from all over Alabama. Yes, we added ours

Someone from Altoona has been this way several times

We are now at a roadside pull-off somewhere between Watson Lake and Teslin for the night. Since there are very few churches in this area, we had our own personal service with a recorded sermon from Lester Memorial UMC.

Home for the night