TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY, SEPT 10 & 11

TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY, SEPT 10 & 11:

     We didn’t get away from Whitehorse til noon.  Bought some groceries –didn’t know when there’d be another chance for any variety, got gas & propane, and did go back to the art shop to buy those prints.  I think we’ll be really pleased with them as part of our house, and they’ll always be evocative of this trip and the stunning landscapes of jagged-edged mountains, deep glacier valleys, & icy blue rivers we saw.

     Another lovely ride to Watson Lake, a little short of 300 miles.  We stopped about mid-way at Teslin, a small First Nation town.  It was recommended to us by the gal at the First Nation Cultural Center in Whitehorse.  Another lovely, impressive facility.

No artisans, carvers, etc. at work.  But they did have a nice exhibit area, and an exquisitely done 30-minute film entitled “Two Winters.” It told the First Nation narrative of why the seasonal cycle was out of rhythm for a year or two back in the early 19^th century . . . why the sun was obscured, why the animals were scarce, etc.  We now know that it was because of the cataclysmic Indonesian volcanic eruption of Krakatoa, which caused worldwide disruption of weather for a year.  But they tied the story to their own understanding of how nature worked, and their part in it, with humble appeals to the Great Spirit for understanding of how they had offended and caused this to happen.  And it became part of their story-telling through the decades.   The legend is actually part of a more northern First Nation group, but the producer/creator of the film is from around Teslin.  The First Nation people of the Teslin area are Interior Tlingit, cousins of the coast Tlingits about whom we saw so much in Southeast Alaska. We could see that the 2 groups had much in common. 

     The film was an artistic masterpiece – with real people, but filmed & edited in such a way that they appeared impressionistic and half-animated.  The overall effect was soft and soothing and reflective.

     More beautiful fall foliage as we continued on to Watson Lake.  Most of it is golden aspens & birches.  Stopped at a nice RV park in a tiny settlement just west of Watson Lake called Nugget.  It’s another very large campground, but there were only about 3 or 4 of us here now.

     On Wednesday, we awoke to a gorgeous clear blue sky and warm air.  Ate breakfast outside – the first time in a very long time!   Felt wonderful.  While I was preparing breakfast, Bill finished up Pappy’s haircut, which he’d gotten nearly done last evening.  He sure needed it – could hardly see his eyes!  (Pappy’s, not Bill’s!) 

 

      Then we drove the 10 miles or so into Watson Lake.  This is the 2^nd largest city in the Yukon, I read.  But that’s not much – the population is under 2,000.  It boomed as a supply center when the Alaskan Highway was being built, and still booms during the summer months when thousands of travelers making their way north stop here. 

     It was another little town that makes the most of its history.  The Visitors Center had a very nice exhibit area on the building of the Alaskan Highway, as well as a great film on it.  We learned how vital this road was in opening up not only interior Alaska, but also much of the Yukon and northern British Columbia, to the Lower 48 and southern Canada.  It really moved these isolated areas into the modern age.  

     Smart, forward-thinking people had long recognized the need for such a road, noting that Alaska, far from being isolated, was actually at the center of any U.S.-Asia route and therefore very strategic.  But only of limited value without an overland route to the interior.  It took the crisis of WWII to bring the concept to actualization.  The U.S. Army built the road at break-neck speed, in only 8 months.  But the first phase was little more than a wilderness trail wide enough for military vehicles.  It took the road-building branch of the Army to come along a year later and put an all-weather surface on it, as well as rebuild most of the bridges and culverts, to make it a permanent all-weather road.  And even then, when Canada purchased the entire road a few years later, it discovered that almost all of it had to be re-built at one time or another.

     From here, we went across the street to another good film on the Northern Lights (this is a private enterprise which charges admission).  It was in a mini-Omnimax type screen.  They combined it with another film on space, emphasizing how incomprehensively vast it is. And what a tiny spec our planet is.  I kept thinking of that verse in Psalms, “What is man that Thou art mindful of him?” 

     Then we went back to the Visitors Center and the famed Signpost Forest.

 

This also began in WWII, when the Army had adopted a practice of posting directions to various points of interest in the Yukon as they built the Alaskan Highway.  Eventually, they started adding some big U.S. cities, and then Tokyo.

 

A wounded, homesick G.I. was working on repairing some damaged signposts here in Watson Lake, and added his own hometown in Illinois.

 

The rest is history . . . there are over 70,000 signs now, hammered row upon row on the scores of signposts the city has erected.

  Every year, thousands more are added, from all around the world. 

 

                                                a few we spotted from Missouri:

 

                                                 and from far away:

     And if by chance you forgot to bring a sign from home, the local hardware store will gladly sell you a piece of wood for $1.50, and the Visitors Center has paints for you to create your own. 
 

 

The challenge is finding an empty place to attach it!  

 

We had a lot of fun adding Lake St. Louis and wandering around amongst the signposts – it’s aptly named “Signpost Forest,” as you feel that you could get lost among the posts!

 

     Grilled burgers outside and ate outside again!  Got up to close to 70 today – it’s been weeks and weeks since we’ve felt this warm!

     Will head south on the Cassiar Hwy tomorrow.