At the world famous signpost forest, that is. More on that in a minute… first, the prelims: The group saddled up and headed out of Liard Hot Springs and headed north. As usual, I was the last one out, due to my ability to sleep in better than anyone else. You don’t have to get up early to see wildlife along the road, though. Black bears and buffalo were in abundance, grazing along the roadside. That second bear is a “brown black bear”, I’m told. looks like a brown bear to me, but apparently there ain’t no such thing. Anyway, I got a picture of one, so there!
Of course, I had to stop at the Yukon border for a photo op. As I drove up to the sign, I met a feller on a motorcycle who was also stopping for a pic. We exchanged cameras and stories. He is riding his BMW from Palo Alto, CA to Prudhoe Bay, AK (and back, I imagine). Talk about your epic road trip! Prudhoe is as far north as the road goes. Best of luck to you, traveller!
The town of Watson Lake got it’s real start as a staging area for the Alaskan Highway construction project, and the visitor’s center has a great photo display and a cool movie about the Yukon. I grabbed some pictures of the road building. Imagine a tiny town of several hundred suddenly being invaded by thousands of men and thousands of trucks and bulldozers. Must have been quite a shock!
The homesick Army guys started putting up hand made road signs with the mileage to their hometowns, and the signpost forest was born. Today, there are more than 70,000 signs and the number grows every day.
Of course, we added a few signs ourselves, including a specially-made, Cole-designed, laser-engraved Loosey Goosey sign to commemorate our trip. Hey, Steve, a little more to the left…. yeah, that’s it! Many photos were taken.
I posted my own little sign… hey, I’m not going to pass by and fail to leave my “Mark”
Strolling through the forest, I grabbed some pix of signs that I thought were interesting, or from places I recognized, or that were just weird. It is apparent that many folks get here without a pre-arranged sign, and just improvise. I saw cake pans, spare tires, toilet seats (dang, that’s sacrificing comfort for notoriety isn’t it?) and a lot of obviously pilfered road signs from local roads. If you want a closer look at some of these unique signs, check out the really large and mind-numbing slide show below. If signs ain’t your thing, you can skip it.
We finally met up with the few remaining stray members of the group during the ceremonial sign hanging… Bob and Molly, Mark and Dortha, Wallace and Wanda and a buncha folks who’s names I can’t remember… anyway, the group was finally all in one place at one time.
And then, in the blink of an eye, they went all loosey goosey and everyone headed off in a number of different directions. Some heading for Alaska via Dawson City, some heading for Skagway, some for Haines Junction, and some on a beeline for Tok, then south for fishing. I’ll be heading for that fishing thing myself eventually, but I intend to see a bit of the scenery and check out some interesting places first. The group will mostly all meet up again in Denali in early July, and since there really aren’t a lot of roads up here, we’ll be running into each other regularly as we goosey around. My immediate plan is to head for Skagway and take a couple of days for the trip. Lots to see and do there, and then maybe up to White Horse. To help you get the lay of the land, here’s a map of the area we are in. I added some arrows to indicate the route I may take, but we’ll take that a little at a time. Many opportunities for re-routing. Loosey Goosey.
Y’all do know that you can click on any of these pictures to see a larger image, right? Well, you can!
For now, I am parked in seclusion in a nice provincial campground enjoying the quiet. Haven’t seen a soul since I parked, and it feels pretty nice. Might get lonely after a bit, but not today. Tomorrow, there will be new things to see and new people to meet. Signing off from the Yukon…..
