Liard Hot Springs resort to Watson Lake, Yukon
Trip Start
Jul 02, 2008
1
9
21
Trip End
Jul 21, 2008
Watson Lake,
Yukon,
Canada
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Vacation Day 8
Liard Hot Springs Lodge, BC to Watson Lake, Yukon Territory
Alaska Highway
Today was a not a bad day despite being a little on the cool side. In fact, the people at the lodge were wondering what happened to the July weather as it hit 0 degrees (centigrade) last night. It has been blustery and well that managed to get the allergies fired up.
The morning started off slow on the wildlife aspect but did later pick up. Our first stop for the day was the Smith River falls, mom went after the geocache but quickly gave it up after getting half way down the roughly 75 steps and deciding she would probably lose her GPS signal any way. The falls were real pretty and I posted a picture.
The later stops for the day were mostly wildlife. First off, our first wildlife was a black tail dear, which we stopped and watched and a red fox later ran in front of us. The real excitement started about an hour later when we spotted a black in the ditch and we watched it until it got spooked off by a semi. I little bit later we ran into a herd of Bison. There were about 35 to 40 in this herd and they just kind a vegged with us watching except for 2 bulls who quickly got up. Suprisingly enough, mom yelled at dad and I both for getting out of the van. Hey, we left the doors open. Any way we proceeded on as nothing really exciting was happening and shortly there after, I saw a brown object in the ditch. It looked to be a small bear, brown in color. As we approached it from the distance the closer we got we could tell it was a grizzley bear.
Air force lodge common room
It looked to be a couple of years old. As time went on, mom yelled at Dad and I both, and then funny thing happened she got out of the van. The Griz showed little to no interest in us and continued to approach our direction to a total distance of about 25 feet. It was about his time someone stopped and said "Hey, you know thats a Grizzley and they can get kind of mean." DUH!!!!!!. But this one wasn't interested, it wasn't a sow and cub and we weren't bothering it. We watched it for the longest time. Obviously we got some awesome shots of pics. So it disappears about 45 minutes later and we drive a little ways down and suddenly a whole entire herd of Bison are there a total of about 60-70 bison. Reminded me of Yellowstone. They blocked the road for about 20 minutes (Road Hogs). Anyway the big bulls were very protective of there herd and the calves that were there. It was a rather interesting day with wildlife.We arrived at Watson Lake about noon, and went to the Sign Post Forest and picked up a geocache and placed our sign on the posts in the sign post forest. I posted a picture of me with the sign. After that we went for lunch, did laundry, went to the northern lights plantelarium and the historic airport runway.
We are staying in the old Watson Lake Air Force Barracks, which have been turned in to a lodge. Even despite my concern over community bathrooms and showers, they have fixed this place up really we. Its a very homey atmosphere, shoes are off running around here. It like a big family. Really nice.
Tomorrow night we are staying at the Dawson Peaks resort on Teslin Lake. This is where the Sue Henry book "Dead North" ends at in the final captivity scene and rescue scene of Jessie Arnold. After re-reading the book before we came it somewhat has made me feel like I was there in the book. Tomorrow we will probably stop at the Tlinget heritage center and the George Johnson Museeum in Teslin as we only have 90 miles to drive. That is unless the wildlife does what it has done the past 2 days. Which honestly, wouldn't bother me a bit.
The next night Skagway and we will be stepping back in time to the year 1892.
