Our morning in Watson Lake ended up a bit different than expected. As planned, we visited the Sign Post Forest with around 85,000 signs. The sign forest began in 1942 when a U.S. Army soldier from Danville, Illinois named Carl K. Lindley was injured and was asked to repaint a sign that had been damaged by a bulldozer. He asked whether he could add a sign indicating the distance to his hometown and ever since people from all over the world have been adding their own signs.
The nearby Alaska Highway Interpretive Centre was our next stop and we learned a great deal about how the 1523 mile highway was built in just 8 months and 12 days!
We spoke to the tourist information agents and got a number of new brochures and information about our upcoming Dempster Highway trip. Now we were really excited about this segment of the trip.
Our next destination was the Watson Lake Airport to learn about the U.S. – Russia Lend-Lease program where the U.S. lent aircraft and other machinery to Russia during the second world war. The information panels and images also showed the network of airports used to ferry the aircraft to Russia. A large, now seemingly empty, former military hanger can still be seen.
When we were ready to leave we had a bit of a surprise – the information panel in the van’s dash showed that the right rear tire was low in pressure. We hurried back to Watson Lake to a tire repair shop and they discovered that the valve stem was leaking. Fortunately they were able to fix it, although they didn’t have any stems compatible with the tire pressure monitoring system. The owner told us that a shop in Whitehorse would be able to replace the valve again with one that was compatible.
On our way to Teslin we stopped at the famous Rancheria Restaurant that was already mentioned in the 1949 edition of the Milepost. Here we had apple pie and talked in great length with the Kim, the daughter of the owner. Kim is a teacher and lives in BC now.
A little further up the road we saw a wolf walking in the bushes by the side of the road.
The rest of the drive to Teslin was uneventful and we crossed the Nisutlin Bay Bridge, the second longest water span on the Alaska Highway at 584 meters.
We checked into the Yukon Model and Lakeshore RV Park right across the bridge and then hurried off to the Teslin Tlingit Heritage Centre for the Ha Kus Teyea Celebration. Here we enjoyed traditional dances and ate smoked and BBQ’d salmon for dinner. By the lake we saw the canoes that had participated in the traditional lake crossing.
Dead tired we returned to our campsite and went straight to bed.