Tetsa River to Watyson Lake, YUKON!

Day 11               Saturday, June 25, 2016                       Watson Lake, Yukon Territory

276 miles (444km)      10.0 mpg (4.25 km/l)         Watson Lake YG Campground, site 32

We crossed the 60^th parallel and are now in the Yukon!  Talk about being up North.

This is our first campground in the Yukon Territory.  They are referred to as Yukon Government campgrounds because they are not a province and therefore don’t call them Provincial Parks.

Today was our best day of the whole trip.  Fort Nelson to Watson Lake is the most scenic section of the Alaska highway.  Lakes, mountains, rivers, forests, and lots of wildlife.  We left Tetsa River campground at 07:00.  We love early morning drives.   For the first hour of driving we saw only three cars going south and none in our direction. 

There were quite a few extremely dusty gravel sections we encountered.  The truck and trailer were covered with dust.

There was mountain scenery all the way.  High, rocky mountains with bits of snow still left over from winter.  The boreal pine forests went on as far as the eye could see.  It was pure wilderness.  No power lines, no cell towers.  There were some beautiful, very large lakes along the way.  

Summit Lake was one and we checked out the provincial park campground there, not to stay, just look.  It was kind of open and exposed. 

Summit Lake

The next large lake was in Muncho Lake Provincial Park.  There were two campgrounds along its shores, Strawerry Flats and and McDonald.  Both were awesome. 

Muncho Lake

An hour away was Laird Hot Springs Provincial Park.   Guess what?  They have hot springs there you can sit in.  We checked out the campground but couldn’t go to the hot springs with the trailer.  We didn’t have bathing suits either.  No pictures there. 

Our destination was Watson Lake.  We were going to check out provincial parks north of there.

We like to take a picture of signs for the different places we’ve been.  And I wanted a “Welcome to Yukon Territory” sign.  There was none.  There was this hokey sign and I took a picture of it anyway.  It was not an official Yukon sign. 

Hokey "Welcome to Yukon" sign.

We later found a real one a few kilometers down the road.

Real Yukon sign.

Saw lots of wildlife today.  We saw our first caribou.  They a clunky looking with their big feet and large snouts.  These are wood caribou as opposed to ANWAR caribou.  The first one was a mom and her calf, the second time was a group of them including two males with antlers. 

Mother and child cruisin' down the road.

The Larger of the two males.

A group of them.

This is what they were doing when we 1st came upon them.

Sighted a black bear by the side of the road walking along eating flowers and later a brown black bear doing the same thing.  I think they call it a cinnamon bear.  Later, two bears ran in front of me and I almost hit them.  They turned around and ran back just as I was about to hit them.  Didn’t get a photo of those two bears.

Black black bear.

Brown black bear

Saw a moose laying in the grass on the side of the road.  Two more by the side of the road, but only got one in the photo, and another standing in a lake.  Went by to fast to get that one.

Laying down enjoying the morning grass.

He wouldn't turn around for us.

Saw a red fox scurry across the road.  No picture.

We also saw a group of stone sheep in the road eating salt at Summit Lake.

This sign was surprising.  A buffalo sign?  Sure enough, we saw buffalo along the road, too.

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Watson Lake has what they call a signpost forest.  It all started when they were building the highway, someone put up a sign pointing in the direction of his house and the milage.  Others started doing it and today there are thousands of signs of all kinds.  We didn’t walk through it, but got this picture.

The campground was very nice.  $17 CAD per night and free firewood.  All Yukon government campgrounds have free firewood.  We had a very nice pull through campsite. 

Our site was pull-through.

We are so far north now, that it doesn’t get dark anymore.  At “night” it’s like the twilight just before sunrise or after sunset.  The birds are confused because the chirp all day and all night.  They sound like wood thrushes.  Very pleasant.