Color Tour - Passing Through B.C. and Yukon Territory 9.26.24

We have been to the Yukon before.  It was in 2012, when we traveled with four of the girls to Skagway, Alaska.  I have copied my description of that trip below, since it was written before I started this blog.  Be forewarned - it is long.  Everything out here is big, including my descriptions.  

Watson Lake is one of the towns we went through then and just this week.  Thus, we have seen the Northern Lights Centre and one or two of the historical museums.  This time we were just passing through, but there is something everyone who visits this town does – visit the Signpost Forest.

It was started by a homesick soldier who had been rotated Stateside due to an injury.  He was instructed to put up a signpost, and on a whim he added a sign pointing to his hometown, Danville, Illinois.  Other people started putting up signs and over the years the custom grew.  There is now a visitors’ center, and they will give you a board and materials to mark it if you didn’t bring your own sign.  We put one up in 2012 and I would love to have found it, but it was in the low 40s and rainy, and I had no idea where we would have put it except that it was way in the back – which doesn’t narrow it down much, since there are now upwards of 77,000 road signs posted!  Like I said, things are done in a big way out here.  However, if you look at the Yukon Exposure post I have added to this blog, you will see a photo of our sign, taken 12 years ago!  

“Color tour” is what they call it in the Midwest, when people take a short road trip, a weekend or a bit more, to see the fall foliage.  We have taken the tour around Lake Michigan.  There are “Lake Michigan Circle Tour” signs so you don’t even really need a map.  The color is fantastic, the motels are full and the deer are out in force.   We hit one of those with a new car on a short but memorable trip many years ago.

In British Columbia, so much of the greenery is evergreen that the fall colors are quite different.  Bright yellow poplars are predominant.  They contrast sharply with the thick dark green carpet that covers the mountains.  Closer to the ground there are other plants in subtle red and mauve shades.  I realize these photos don’t begin to show the colors as they really are, but pull-outs with views tend to focus on the mountains, not the meadow areas closer to the highway. 

South of Watson Lake, we had driven through a huge wildfire area.  Thousands of acres were covered in blackened, needleless evergreen trunks, with the poplars along the road almost blindingly yellow and gold.  Talking to the women at the visitors’ center in Watson Lake, I learned that well over 60,000 acres had been destroyed in two consecutive fires about a year and a half ago.  I also learned why the poplars are so prevalent and why they are the first to come back after a fire.  They are really all one organism, with connected roots reaching way underground, so they don’t burn up completely and they come back quickly.  They are beautiful but apparently so hardy you wouldn’t want them in your yard as they would take over.  I regret not getting a photo of the black and gold forests. 

Whitehorse has changed a lot in 12 years, expanding with a lot of new construction.  One benchmark we used was, when we were there last, there was exactly one Chinese restaurant in town; now there are several, and a lot of other new businesses as well.  We were able to boondock in the parking lot of a Real Canadian Superstore, which I may have mentioned in an earlier post.  It is a huge Canadian chain supermarket with many no-name products.  This may keep costs down, but it makes for an exhausting shopping experience, with many aisles full of identical yellow labels with black lettering, requiring careful reading.  Still, one should never argue with free camping opportunities.

 

In this area, continuing north and west towards and beyond Whitehorse, highway 37 skirts the Cassiar Mountains, which are east of the Coastal Ranges.  Who in the U.S. has even heard of the Cassiar Mountains?  They do not appear on my trusty road atlas, and on other maps, they are indicated with small letters and little other marking.  So I expected small mountains, but these are spectacular, huge, extensive, and wild.  Sometimes you will see three or four peaks in a sawtooth formation, which reminds me of the signal fires that were lit in “Lord of the Rings,” when Gondor called for help. 

The photos below were all taken at one rest stop.  From every angle, anywhere I turned, there was heart-stopping beauty. 

 

Gas prices: 

I stopped keeping track after we paid $1.92 Canadian per liter in Whitehorse, which works out to $5.40 US per gallon.  It makes no sense to me that we are paying more for gas, considering that we are closer than we’ve ever been to where the gas actually comes from.  Coming into Alaska, we ground our teeth and expected the worst, but it’s actually not bad, less than it has been in Chicago lately:  $3.72 in Tok, $3.45 in Fairbanks.

Signage:  

No explicit lyrics before 10 pm – Oasis Restaurant and Lounge, Fairbanks, AK (I’m not sure whether this was tongue in cheek or not, but it’s funny either way.)

Businesses:  Mr. Pain Deep Tissue Massage Therapy, Whitehorse, Yukon Territory

The Bun Also Rises - Bakery in Fairbanks, AK

"Space ship out of jet fuel" - Hand-lettered cardboard sign held by panhandler on Johansen Expressway in Fairbanks