Yukon Territory 

Day 11

7/1/26. Wednesday 

Woke up to a cool, wet morning. Our destination is Watson Lake, Yukon Territory

Canada Day! Doesn’t appear to be as big of a celebrated day in the province of BC. As I was talking to a BC woman the other day and mentioned it was almost Canada Day she was unaware of which day of the week it occurred. 

Then when we got to Watson Lake there was a Canada Day event going on at Lucky Lake. Seemed like the whole town was there. Unfortunately we didn’t stop because we wanted to make sure to get a campsite on Watson Lake. By the time we were done with that the celebration was over. Our bad… next thing like that we will stop now!

Smith River Falls. After our disappointing walk to a falls yesterday we hoped this one was going to be better. We took the 1.5 mile drive in on a pothole gravel road. Then a steep, well maintained, short trail down to the river near the bottom of the two-tiered falls. This was worth the litttle effort to get to this falls! It was gigantic.

Whirlpool Canyon on the Liard River. It was a short drive turnout off the highway to the river. We took a quick hike over rocks and burned trees to a bank on the river to really see the three channels of roiling waves merging together. Pretty powerful sight in high water. Not sure pictures do it justice but there will be videos on the website to get the real view. 

1 black bear 

Wood Bison along the highway corridor. Moms and calves (mostly napping)

What is the difference between Wood Bison and Yellowstone Park Bison. Wood Bison are a sub-species of Bison Bison. There body configurations are different. Heads aren’t as massive and their bodies are darker. They have adapted to the boreal forest. Tough critters for sure. They’ve got some long, cold winters.

Yukon Territory! The highway crosses the BC/YT border a few times before you truly are in Yukon country. But at the first most point there is this sticker decorated sign that says Welcome to the Yukon. It’s our first time in this province. Looking forward to its beauty.

Mixed Forest. The contrast of colors and shades of green between the poplar (gray/green) and the spruce that are dark green/brown. 

Sign Post Forest. It’s huge! There are license plates and signs from all over the world. More than 100,000 signs since 2023. It was started by a lonely US soldier highway worker in 1942. It is now a territorial historical site.

This maze of posts is enormous. The sign posts swim all over the place going every which way. You could spend hours if you wanted.

WWII Airport Hangar. This old WWII hangar was built in 1942. It was used to ferry aircraft to Alaska and the Soviet Union for the war effort. 

Mt Maichen Ski Hill. Unfortunately the gate to the hill was closed. The sign is as close as we could get. This little ski hill is operated by volunteers.

We are camped at Lake Watson Government Camp. It’s on Lake Watson but the camp sites are not on the lake and most of them the lake is not visible are maybe slightly. We could see the lake from the airport at least. It’s a nice sized lake. Good fishing I suppose.

Tomorrow we head a bit southwest (back into BC. We’re going to Lake Atlin. It’s a recommendation from our friend Jana from Anchorage AK.