Day 10: Kitwanga, British Columbia to Watson Lake, Yukon - Sunday, 5/19/24

 Picture of the day

The sign Lynda created for the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake, Yukon

We headed out at 7:30 this morning from Kitwanga on the Cassiar Highway. One of our goals today was to get to Watson Lake where there’s a sign post forest. This is not the original route we had intended to take and started out pleasantly surprised to find the road is not as bad as some had indicated in earlier posts.

We reached three milestones today. 

1. We hit 3000 miles total driving since we left Iowa in the RV!
2. Since we have been using public restrooms wherever available, we finally finished the first roll of toilet paper this morning. We think we overpacked since we also brought six mega rolls from Costco!
3. We finished our first audio book of the trip - The Teacher by Freida McFadden.  It was good and helped pass the time.

We had lots of bear sightings (and one porcupine?) on the Cassiar Highway today. Our first sighting was about 50 miles into the drive.  In total, we saw 12 bears, including two cubs with their moms. We think one mom and cub were grizzlies while all of the others were black bears.  Most of the bears were on the side of the road grazing, but one was crossing the road as we came around a curve!

We pulled over at an overlook hoping to see the Nass river, but instead came across this mama bear and her baby. The baby was playing with a plastic water bottle and rolling around like a puppy.  These are the bears we think were grizzlies/ brown bears.

Here are some of the other bears we saw during the trip on Cassiar Highway...

Is he smiling or snarling at us?  Check out his tooth!

The other day when we told Brittney we saw two bears, she replied that seven bears saw us.  That means a couple dozen bears saw us today.  We are both glad we stayed in the RV!

One sad note about the bears - we saw one bear on the side of the road that had been hit by a vehicle.  We are used to seeing deer that have been killed, but something about the bear made us extra sad. 🙁

If you’re ever planning a road trip to Alaska, there’s a pretty useful magazine called Milepost. It takes some getting used to, but it’s actually quite handy. It tells you things to look for at certain mile markers. The part that’s hard to get used to is that the mile markers in the book are distances from specific cities or junctions, so they don’t always match the infrequent mile markers posted on the road. If you look away for a couple minutes, you have to reorient yourself in the book.

Since Dave has mastered the art of driving the RV, Lynda has mastered the Milepost book. We’ve noticed that the places they tell us to look for bears or moose are not where we have seen them, so we are going to send in our mile marker posts so they can update their magazine next year. Lol. (BTW, thanks to Carol and Dad for getting us a copy of this book!) Those who know Lynda know she likes to proofread, and, sure enough, she found a typo on page 267.

Between Iskut and Dease lake, there’s a section of road that has hairpin turns on a washed-out gravel road with deep ruts. Thankfully, we went through that section during the day with no other cars around.

Here are some pictures of one of many lakes we saw today.  This one is at 3,700 feet. 

Gnat Lake

We stopped at Dease Lake for expensive gas ($2.069/L or $5.95/gal) and to make pb&j sandwiches for lunch.  Not a whole lot going on in Dease Lake, but they had a decent little grocery.

Dease Lake gas station.

We didn't get a great picture of Dease Lake, but it continued the tradition of awesome and really large lakes in the area.

Earlier we said the Cassiar Highway wasn't too bad.  Well, it did get worse as we headed north.  At points, it was more like a wide one-lane road, which made dealing with oncoming trucks difficult.  There are very few side roads, and most turns are into private mining areas. Lynda compared being on this road to riding on a 450-mile roller coaster with tons of ups and downs and curves, and lots of large potholes/frost heaves. It also reminded us of road trips in the 1970s to early 1990s since we had no cell coverage for the entire length of the Cassiar Highway. All-in-all, though, Dave liked the road.

One other note about the road and this part of British Columbia is that there is some serious backcountry to explore, for those so inclined. 

We couldn't pass up the opportunity for a photo of Lynda's maiden namesake lake.

Along the route today we saw at least 3 bike riders heading south on the highway. They all had multiple packs hanging off their bikes (and none of the bikes were electric!). Dave's guess is they are biking through the area on some long-distance ride. Lynda said she would be terrified riding her bike on this road because of how narrow it is and all the curves and bumps - nevermind all the bears. It reminded Dave of the book "Downhills Don't Come Free," although that author wasn't on this specific road.

We read that there was a forest fire here in 2011 and could not believe the miles and miles of desolation/devastation that still exist today. For those parts, it felt like we were driving on another planet.

Near the end of the Cassiar Highway, we officially left British Columbia and entered Yukon. 

The city of Watson Lake is known for the Sign Post Forest.  It is where travelers hang signs over most surfaces in a designated park.  There are over 100,000 signs in the park.

We read every one of the signs and found

1. One with Zuerchers.  We don't think this is Jenny and Doug, but figured it was neat anyways.
2. People are creative with the materials they use for their signs.  We made ours from an extra piece of vinyl bathroom floor tile we had. There were a ton of license plates and wood signs but some of the more unique ones were made from the following: paddle/oar, plate, dust pan, cake pan, Frisbee, bedpan, football, shoes, and many, many more.

Back in Aurora, Lynda created a sign commemorating our trip.  (She made it using permanent markers and then sealed it.  Oddly the 2nd coat of the sealant smeared the red ink.)  We brought screws and a screwdriver and found the perfect spot for it.

See our sign in the lower right?   Those with really good eyes will also see other signs with the names Dave or Lynda on this same post.

We found this quick explanation of how the sign post forest started.

Earlier in the trip when the wildfires were causing havoc, we got some extra Canadian cash (since we only brought $30) in case credit cards didn't work. So far, it seems credit card processing is working fine so we used nearly all our cash at one of the gas stops for the day. 

We ended the day at Nugget City RV Park just a few miles west of the Cassiar and Alaska Highway junction.  There is nothing special and no internet, but we do have electricity and water.  We grilled some brats and ate in the RV because there are mosquitos the size of birds outside!  (We should mention that the park is for sale in case anyone is interested.)

At the campground, the only available Wi-Fi was near the laundry room and bathrooms. So, as to not disappoint our blog followers, we went to the laundry room to use Wi-Fi to try to upload our daily update.  While there, we saw a sign indicating that if anyone downloaded anything or made a Skype or FaceTime call, they would be kicked out of the camp immediately with no refund! We couldn’t risk it so had to wait.  

We mentioned how wildfires changed our plans for getting through Canada.  This picture shows the original and altered routes.  

Tomorrow we continue to head west towards Alaska! We have 856 miles to go to get to Fairbanks, so tomorrow night will probably be our last night in Canada for this trip.

Total miles traveled: 460 

Previous: Day 9: Jasper, Alberta to Kitwanga, British Columbia

Next: Day 11: Watson Lake, Yukon to Lake Creek Campground, YK (north of Destruction Bay)