NORTH TO ALASKA - DAY 14 - SIGN POST FOREST TO TESLIN YUKON MOTEL AND LAKEVIEW RV PARK

We woke up at the Downtown RV park in Watson Lake, Yukon. It wasn't much more than a parking lot like I said in my last blog. But it sure was handy. 

We caught up on laundry and showers. It was a good morning to get a few things accomplished before we were going to hit the road again. It was raining outside and we were hoping it would let up before we went over to the Signpost Forest.

Here is the link to the campground in case anybody would like it for future reference:

DOWNTOWN RV PARK IN WATSON LAKE

https://www.downtownrvyukon.com/

We soon had all of our clean laundry packed back into the motorhome. Felt good to start out again with a whole drawer full of clean underwear and socks! 

The rain really hadn't let up, but we decided to start up and drive the motorhome over to the Signpost Forest

This is what it's all about...

SIGNPOST FOREST

https://yukoninfo.com/watson-lake-signpost-forest/

We were totally blown away by how many Signposts there were!

The tradition was started back during the war when they were building the Alaska Highway. Back then it was known as the Alcan Highway.  A homesick soldier was told to erect some type of a directional sign. He added his own hometown to the signpost. That's what started this... And the tradition carries on to this day.

I had ordered a little oval sign to be made up from Instaprint. It is aluminum clad over a plastic disc. I hope it lasts a long time. We took care of mounting it in a particular spot. Steve repaired the sign above that was on an angle by putting an extra screw in it for those people.

If you want to watch our process, it's on the YouTube link at the end of this blog. Of course we had to take our little silly picture using our selfie stick. As we stood out in the rain and the sleet to take care of our little sign.

We took careful note of where we put it, so hopefully someday we can look back on it again. Maybe our children or our grandchildren will come this way and look for our sign?

This place is just totally amazing with hundreds and hundreds of posts and thousands and thousands of signs. I wonder if anybody has counted how many are there each year?

We were looking around and happened to see nearby a sign from a couple from the town of Pound, Wisconsin. That's only a few miles from Oconto!!

So we took a photo of the sign and had hoped to contact Ron and June Roskams to let them know their sign is still there 20021 years later!

Sadly, that was not to be. I looked up both of them and it seems they had passed away. But it was mentioned in Ron's obituary about their trip to Alaska. How neat is that?

I searched a little and contacted the oldest son and the oldest daughter-in-law via Facebook Messenger. They have not replied yet, but I hope maybe they will see my messages. Neither one seems to be very active on Facebook. There are four other children listed in other parts of the country in the obituary. I will try to search each one of them out when I have the chance. And then I will send them the photo. It might be cool for them to see their parents sign is still there, even though their parents are now gone.

In the center of the forest, there is an array of heavy equipment that was used to help build the original Alcan Highway by soldiers as well as First Nations people who lived in the area that were employed to help out. 

Steve took the time to chat with a young man who said his grandfather had been one of the workers on the Alcan! He said so many of the workers had died because the equipment was unsafe and dangerous. There weren't even any roll cages or safety measures on these heavy machines. OSHA really wasn't a thing back in those days. So was very interesting to hear that level of involvement that the First Nations People's played in the development of the Alcan Highway.

Steve hopped up to add a sticker to this big digger machine.  He did it while I watched from the warmth of the motorhome.

EDIT: Mary, a regular blog reader, added this information in a comment. I thought I would add it up here as well: 

Mary ~ Reflections Around the CampfireSaturday, May 17, 2025 at 10:40:00 AM CDT

The Watson Lake Visitor's Interpretive Centre next to the Sign Post Forest keeps a tally of the number of signs in the Forest, and posts the (ever-increasing) numbers on one of their walls inside. The most recent tally posted (as of the summer of 2024) was 100,000 - but that milestone was achieved back on September 28, 2022.

We headed up back on the Alaka Highway to get to our next destination. We keep a sharp eye out for wildlife. 

We saw this huge animal and mistakenly thought it was an elk. I guess I was looking at the point pointy antlers? 

But we were mistaken, I guess it's really a caribou. What was interesting is that it only had one antler! We are thinking the other one kind of got broken off in an argument somewhere...

This graceful animal pranced across the road, and posed for us in front of the motorhome. How perfect?

That first shot was with the GoPro. It's not very clear. So then I grabbed my good camera and took the next few shots. It's amazing how detailed and sharp it can be even though the caribou had already moved off along the side of the highway.

We watched as it ambled along the road, and we drove slowly alongside of it to see where it was going.

We are pretty sure it was a girl. Did you know????

CARIBOU FACTS

Within the Cervidae family, the female caribou is unique in that they are the only of their gender to carry antlers.

We drove along for a couple hours following the Rancheria River westward.  We pulled over in a nice turn out. All along the Alaskan Highway are many turnouts that you can pull over, camp in, get some rest, or even make lunch! 

And that we did.... using the leftover pot roast from yesterday, I added some frozen peas and made up some gravy from the pot roast juice. I chopped up the potatoes and the carrots into smaller pieces and shredded up about 1/4 of the pot roast. The other half of pot roast was shredded up and put in ziplocs in the freezer for future meals. 

I got four meals out of that one big pot roast. Pretty good. I'm always looking to cook on a budget, but not skimp on good quality meat either. This was a win-win.

We continued further north and west as the mountains were getting larger and larger. Most of them are covered with snow. Here's some road shots as we zoomed along...

One scene is just as pretty as the next. 

I just keep taking zillions of pictures. I looked at the total count for this day and it was 327 photos and videos!

It's a wonder how I can choose 

 only a few for you to enjoy?

As we were nearing the Teslin River, we got slowed down by a little bit of road construction.  It wasn't too bad. Once the pilot car led us across the bridge, right into the town of Teslin, we decided to stop to get fuel. 

Anytime your fuel is around half a tank, it's good to fill up because you really don't know where the next station is. Also, the next station may already be out of fuel and you have to wait until the next replenishment truck comes to deliver. 

We noticed a nice little RV campground right behind the Yukon Motel where we were fueling up. That one hadn't even shown up on our maps? I guess it's pretty new. So we asked inside and we were able to pull in and take a site. It was $50 Canadian which is $35.88 US. But we were tired and even though we had only driven 131 miles, I think we were beat and we wanted to get some rest.

I was so tired when we got there, I didn't even go outside or take any photos. But I did take some the next morning while I walked with Nicholas. I will post them in tomorrow's blog. 

As for now, we just crawled into bed and went to sleep!

LAKEVIEW RV PARK AT YUKON MOTEL

https://yukonmotel.com/

Here's the link to the YouTube that goes along with this blog post:

131 miles today

2,729 miles so far