Fantasy Caravan Day 16 - Liard River, BC to Watson Lake, Yukon Territory

On Sunday, we had a little shorter drive, just about 130 miles, from Liard River, British Columbia, to Watson Lake, Yukon Territory. We wanted to arrive by midday in Watson Lake so we would have time to see some of the sights there.

First though... on Saturday night, the northern lights were predicted to be at a maximum chance of visibility where we were -- there had been a solar flare a couple of days before -- so even though one of the local folks indicated it wasn't likely we'd see anything because it was so light, we went out at midnight to look. We have heard that sometimes the camera sees them even if your eyes do not. Do you see northern lights in the picture? No? Neither do we!

It was more smoky on Sunday morning -- not as bad as Friday, but not as nice as Saturday...

A view of the Liard River alongside the Alaska Highway -- the road followed the river most of the way to the Yukon.

We had not really seen much wildlife, so I took a picture of the non-wild life occupying my lap...

... when we noticed vehicles in front of us braking and pulling to the side of the road...

... a herd of bison... lots of youngsters...

... a nice herd!

One large one decided to cross the road in front of us.

A baby out the side window

The herd was feeding along the side of the highway.

We had planned a stop at a pullout for a break and to change drivers... and there was an information board about the bison...

There was also a lockout at this pullout -- we were high above the Liard River...

... evidently this had been a location where outlaws would hide out with the intention of robbing boats as they traversed the river.

There was a cairn honoring surveyors who worked on the Alaska Highway.

A few miles further, we entered the Yukon Territory for the first time. You can't tell, but it says "Welcome to Yukon" with lots and lots of stickers on it.

The highway went back and forth between Yukon and British Columbia 6 times...

... until we got to the "official" welcome to the Yukon sign, just south of Watson Lake.

We had held off on getting fuel at the few small stations on our way the last two days, and wanted to get diesel before we went to the campground...

... for various and assorted reasons, we ended up trying to get fuel at 5 places ...

... before we were successful when we returned to the third station where we ended up being successful.

After getting into the campground, we joined a meeting with our fellow Fantasy guests (for a briefing on the next couple of days)...

... and then headed over to the sign post forest...

... thousands of signs!

Jeff putting up the one for our tour group.

Carl and me in front of the sign for our group.

There's so much to see at sign post forest, that we put pictures and a video together just so you can enjoy the images:

In the visitor's centre, there was a record of the count of the signs -- I don't know who does the counting!

The Watson Lake Visitor Centre also had a lot of information about...

The Alcan

A "corduroy" road over swampy areas

The Alcan became the Alaska Highway.

Later in the evening, we joined Mory and Peggy, another couple in our Fantasy Caravan group, to visit the Northern Lights Centre across the highway from our campground.

The building had neat fabric displays on the outside that, as the wind was blowing, looked like the sky in the image was dancing!

A selfie area inside the centre

We went to see a video -- and saw two. This was before the video began, illustrating the way that the northern lights would appear to someone looking at the earth from afar.

We saw some beautiful videos of the aurora that were taking at Yellowknife, Northwest Territory. It makes us want to return in the winter to have the opportunity to see the northern lights!