Wednesday, July 3, 2013 (Travel to Watson Lake, Yukon)

It was shortly after 9:00 when we left Liard River Hot Springs campground and continued north on the Alaska Highway.  It was a beautiful day as we started off alongside the Liard River...

About 30 kms/19 miles down the road we came across the Smith River...

It wasn't long before we came across the dreaded road work...

...with gravel covering the road...

...and 16 kms/10 miles of dust!

We crossed over Coal River...

...it flows into the Liard River...

Then we came across a couple of herds of bison!








...with babies...

...and then a young black bear...










These are the Cranberry Rapids on the Liard River...

We stopped at Allen's Lookout...legend has it that a band of outlaws took advantage of this sweeping view of the Liard River to attack and rob riverboats....

More beautiful scenery...

...and more bison...

This is the Hyland River...a tributary of the Liard River.  The river was named for Frank Hyland, an early day trader at Telegraph Creek on the Stikine River.  Hyland operated trading posts throughout north British Columbia, competing successfully with the Hudson's Bay Co., and at one time printing his own currency.

Welcome to Yukon sign...the Alaska Highway crosses the BC-YT border 6 times before reaching the official border.








Then we arrived at our destination for today...Watson Lake, Yukon...

After a stop at the Visitors Centre, we decided to stay at Downtown RV Park...basically a gravel parking lot with full hookups.  The sites were so close together...obviously made when RV's didn't have sliders.  However, we chose it because it was within walking distance to things we wanted to see in Watson Lake and we didn't want to disconnect the trailer.  It was also a little pricey at $39.50/night...and that was with the Good Sam discount.

Remember that 16 kms of dust we went through earlier?  Well, there was a thick layer of dust over everything in the trailer...you could even smell the dust.  So guess what I did for the next couple of hours?  I dusted all surfaces using 6 Swifter dusters and then I gave the whole trailer a good vacuuming.  If this is what we have to look forward to the further north we go...yikes!

Once we had finished our work, we went for a walk back to the Visitors Centre...and the Sign Post Forest...there are now over 72,000 signs...

After wandering around the signpost forest, we went into the Visitors Centre and watched a short video on the Alaska Highway and then viewed the displays...

On our way home, we stopped at Wye Lake Park (across the road from the RV Park).  There is a 1.5 mile/2.5 km trail that winds around the lake...but it was getting late and we still had to have dinner and then we wanted to go to the 7:30 show at Northern Lights Centre.

Just after 7:00 we walked across the highway to Northern Lights Centre.  It's the only planetarium in North America featuring the myth and science of the northern lights. "Using advanced video and laser technology, the centre offers presentations on the aurora borealis inside a 100-seat 'Electric Sky' theatre environment."

This is Canada's most famous Astronaut...Chris Hadfield who has just returned from commanding the International Space Station...

Back at the RV Park, we noticed that it had really filled up...this shows how close together the sites are.  Another RV pulled in on the other side of us a short time later.