July 9 From Yukon to BC

Ardith was hearing sounds of the metal bridge at night, thinking it was an exhaust fan.  The bridge was very near the motel.

We made a stop at Watson Lake Visitors’ Center to make sure the Alaska Highway had been re-opened from a large rockslide of about 10 days ago.  It had been, so we didn’t need to divert to Cassiar Highway.  Adjacent to the center was the Signpost Forest, a collection of over 71,000 street and traffic signs from all over the world.  This was started by a US Army private in 1942 when the Alaska Highway was being built.  He was supposed to repair a signpost and decided to add the distance to his home town.  The idea has gone viral since.

Early in Jim’s driving, he saw a bear on the side of the road.  Ardith had been looking down.  Later, the reverse happened.  Then, we sporadically saw bears simultaneously, including black bears and a mother grizzly with 2 cubs. 

We saw a bison here and a bison there, then, shortly after enjoying bison burgers for lunch, we came on a herd of over 100 bison including dozens of cubs.  They were on both sides of the road and nearly every passing car stopped for a while to watch them. They also crossed the road at a very slow pace.  They certainly don’t have any fear of traffic.

We saw the first deer in this trip.

 Caribou like to avoid humans and this one did his best to keep its distance.

The Alaska Highway weaves in an out of the border between Yukon and British Columbia.  At one point, there were signs indicating Stone Sheep possible along the stretch of road ahead of her.  Jim mentioned that to Ardith.  A mile or 2 later (oh, Canada, 2 or 3 kilometers later), Jim said “there’s one”.  Ardith said “one what”.  She said she didn’t expect the sheep to be the color of the local stones and missed seeing that one, but we found a few more as we progressed.  Ardith had been keeping her eyes glued to the road on the lookout for animals crossing the road.  She had been doing a great deal of the driving on this trip and has no desire to have a close personal interaction between the Prius and an animal.

We crossed one of two continental divides.  The water from one side flows to the Pacific Ocean, the other side flows to the Arctic.

We spent the night in Fort Nelson, BC.  We ended up with a room that could sleep 6 including a second bedroom.  We were happy that there was a boiler room next to us – no noise from there.  Then we realized that the stairs were next to us.  We heard every step of every person going to the second floor.  At least the internet connection was solid and a reasonable speed and Jim could work with lights on after Ardith went to sleep.

We started looking for a place to have dinner shortly before 7.  Ardith said she wanted to go to Boston Pizza, which is just a block from our motel, after so much time on the road today.  Jim said no, that is a chain.  We drove around and found 4 local places that closed at either 5 or 7 on Saturday night.  We ended up back at Boston Pizza.  Jim had a Baja salad, Ardith an individual pizza.  They split a yummy toffee pudding for dessert.  It was surprising that the town closed up so early on a Saturday night.  Very different from home when Saturday night is a very busy one for restaurants.