Bill & Jim's Alaska Trip

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Weather was poor today - it started raining early. It seems like we drove through hundreds of miles of muddy construction to get to Watson Lake.The famous 'signpost forest' is there. During the construction of the Alaska Highway, there was a signpost showing the distances to several cities around the world. A homesick soldier who was repainting the existing signs added a sign for his hometown. Thus it started. There are now about 31,000 signs, with 2,000 new ones added every year.

As you can see, many of the signs are goverment signs, but I couldn't see myself stealing one, so I had a sign made in Fort Collins before we left. We weren't looking over the signpost forest more than 2 minutes before I saw that someone had beaten us - there was already an official City of Fort Collins sign there. I attached mine anyway, and sent a while looking around. Shortly, we spotted a very nice pussy cat that has taken up residence at the visitors' center. I guess he keeps the forest free of vermin :)

We made it to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory today. There were many spectacular lakes between Watson Lake and Whitehorse. Teslin Lake is one of the biggest. Where the Alaska Highway meets it, there is a six-span girder bridge over the Nisutlin River. Thirty miles later, where the highway leaves the lake, there is another girder bridge, this one high enough so that the old river steamboats (paddlewheelers) could go under.

Arrived in Whitehorse and checked in. Whitehorse is not a particularly pretty or quaint town. The architecture tends more toward the functional than the attractive. The sun finally set at 11:06 pm. FWIW, 103 liters of 91 octane gasoline was CDN$ 71.
To the Alaska trip page.
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