Yukon Territory – Larger than Life
We entered Yukon Territory at Watson Lake, home of the Sign Post Forest. There wasn’t a lot going on, but we learned all about the Aurora Borealis and visited the Sign Post Forest where visitors post signs from their home towns. The tradition began during the Alaska Highway Project in 1942, when U.S. soldier Carl K. Lindley spent time in Watson Lake recovering from an injury. A commanding officer asked him to repair and erect the directional signposts, and while completing the job, he added a sign that indicated the direction and mileage to his hometown of Danville, Illinois. Others followed suit, and the trend caught on. Today, there are over 77,000 signs in the Forest, and the number grows each year as visitors contribute signs and continue the tradition. The Town of Watson Lake maintains the site, adding more sign posts as they fill up.
My personal favorite posting was….
We proceeded to Whitehorse and despite the horrific campground we stayed at, we loved the city and all it had to offer. Food trucks, great brewery, interesting museum, art galleries, good bagels, good hiking trails and an oyster bar add up to a 5 star visit for us! Fortunately we will return to Whitehorse on our way back. This is a photo of Mile Canyon in Whitehorse where we hiked.
We took a day trip to Skagway, Alaska which was fun, but you definitely knew you were back in the US. Cruise ships come into port and disgorge tons of people – although it wasn’t too crowded the day we went – and the town is packed with jewelry shops owned by the cruise lines that sell gold nugget jewelry to the tourists. As you can see, we have down jackets on. Despite the heat many of you are suffering with, it’s been going down into the 40s most nights. It also stays light forever….right now it’s almost midnight and the sunlight is similar to what it’s like around 7-8pm at this time of the year at home.
Dawson City, Yukon Territory
We had a stressful, but beautiful drive from Whitehorse to Dawson City on the Klondike Hwy. The trip was about 350 miles with about 50 miles of moonscape roadwork that we had to navigate – gravel roads driving 25 to 30 mph. The highest level of stress was seeing a very large, very expensive Tiffin motor home that had gone too close to the non-existent shoulder and was teetering in a ditch.
We are only about 165 miles south of the Arctic Circle. As a matter of fact, we saw a turnoff sign on the Klondike Hwy that simply read: Arctic Ocean!
Again, the raw beauty of this place has astounded us. This is a view of the Klondike River.
Before leaving on this journey, we watched “Dawson City: Frozen Time” which documents the history of this city both as the center of the Canadian gold rush, in addition to its relationship with the motion picture industry. It pieces together the bizarre true story of a long lost collection of 533 nitrate films from the early 1900s. Dawson City had only been founded in 1896 as a result of the Canadian gold rush in the Yukon Territory which brought 100,000 prospectors to the area. There wasn’t a lot to do in Dawson City, so the movie house served as the center of entertainment. Because Dawson City was the final stop of the distribution chain and because the nitrate film was so flammable and expensive to ship back to Hollywood, films were seldom, if ever, returned.
The now-famous Dawson City Collection was uncovered in 1978 when a bulldozer dug up a horde of film cans in a parking lot. The perma-frost protected films included rare silent films and newsreels and provides a vivid account of the Klondike gold rush.
For the film buffs, here is a link should you want to read more about this: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jul/28/dawson-city-frozen-time-yukon-gold-rush-capital-documentary
This will be our last stop in Canada on this leg of the trip. We will enter again on the return leg through Destruction Bay, Yukon Territory.
On to Chicken, Alaska!