Adventures along the Alaska Highway

Corinne Alaska 4 Comments

The last post discussed the realities of driving the Alaska Highway. Let’s now show you some of the fun we had along the way! Admittedly, we came through this section of the world faster than we would have liked. But we were on a mission….our youngest daughter Janelle is flying into Anchorage to join us in a few weeks and we need to be there on time to pick her up! We will be taking the Alaska Highway back home in September, so we’ll slow it down then.

I need to mention a Facebook group that we belong to. It’s called “RVing to Alaska (the Original)”. It’s run by former fulltime RVers that now live in Alaska. This Facebook page is a great “gathering space” for people making this trip of a lifetime. Do we have a secret handshake to identify one another IRL (in real life)? No, we have a sticker that we apply to the back of our rigs.

We didn’t want to put the sticker directly on the back of our RV, Sandy. So instead, we bought a cheap plastic cutting board, drilled a few holes in it, applied the sticker and zip-tied the whole thing to the ladder on the back of the RV. Viola! No sticky glue to deal with when the trip is done.
Our sticker is nice and high where it can be spotted. Look at us!

Cinnamon Buns

On the Alaska Highway, you keep driving. And driving. And driving some more. And if you pay attention to what the aforementioned Facebook page says, you discover that this part of the world if full of little bakeries that claim to have the world’s best cinnamon buns. I have no idea how this came to be a thing, but we we definitely had to participate. So, one of our stops was at the Tetsa River Lodge in British Columbia.

Tetsa River Lodge…photo borrowed from their website. https://tetsariver.com/.

We arrived shortly after 7:00 a.m. when they opened. Hey, we wanted to make sure we got a cinnamon bun before they ran out! It was not problem. This establishment proudly proclaims on their website AND on signs around the property that they are the “Cinnamon Bun Center of the Galactic Cluster.” I don’t know if it is true or not, but who are we to argue.

And here is the cinnamon bun. It was HUGE and really quite tasty. No complaints from our corner of the Galactic Cluster.

One thing that struck us about this lodge was that they were totally off the grid. They were running a big generator for electricity, you could hear it in the background. And the woman who sold us the cinnamon buns could take a credit card because they now have Internet via Starlink. Starlink has been a game changer for these remote businesses.

Hot Springs

The next place on our MUST STOP list was the Liard River Hot Springs. We did not have reservations, so the early start to score a cinnamon bun allowed us to arrive at the Hot Springs by 10:00 am and were able to score a first come-first served campsite in the Liard River Provincial Park. We parked and quickly got out the swim suits.

It was a half mile walk on a boardwalk to the hot springs, through a marshy area. We saw a moose in here grazing away, from a distance fortunately.
But to gain access to that boardwalk, you had to go through a gate in an electric fence. The electric fence surrounds the campground, not the boardwalk and the hot springs. Its purpose is to protect the campers from the wild critters (bears, moose, etc.). I heard more than one person mention that it felt like we were in the movie Jurassic Park. Bring on the velociraptors!
We spent the afternoon and the next morning soaking in the natural pool. It had a slight sulfur smell, but it was not bad. And the water was crystal clear.
The hot water comes up from the ground through a layer of shale and meanders down the hill to the pool. There it mixes with cold water. Ah…pure luxury. You could walk up hill a bit and see the source of the hot water. The hot water trickling from amongst the greenery is called the Hanging Gardens.
We went back again the next morning. With not as many people in the pool, the water was not stirred up as much. The top 6 inches of the water was really hot. You had to keep moving your hands and arms back and forth to equalize the water temperature a bit. But we weren’t complaining.

The Yukon

After a day a the hot springs, it was time to push on to the Yukon.

The 60th Parallel (60 degrees north of the Earth’s equator) defines the southern border of the Yukon. That unseen landmark rated its own wayside, so we just had to stop.

The 60th parallel serves as the southern mainland boundary of the northern territories—Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. When Canadians speak of “north of 60,” they are referring to this area. So we are now “north of 60!”

Shortly after the 60th parallel wayside, we came upon the Welcome to the Yukon sign. Yet another photo opportunity.

We had been covering a lot of territory, and needed a way to visually keep track of where we were. The Milepost Guidebook that I mentioned in the last blog post, has a map. This map has been hanging in our home office for the last couple of years, with post-it notes on it to remind us of the names of all the highways (confusing) and all the must-see-sights. I decided to put the map up on the wall of the RV. Get out the blue tape!

I grabbed a red post-it note and cut it into an arrow (pointed at by the big red arrow). I move that red arrow as we relocate just to keep track of where we are at in this vast expanse of land.

Watson Lake Sign Post Forest

Visiting the Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake is a must-do. Back in World War II, a soldier was tasked with installing a post with arrow shaped signs denoting local destinations and how many miles to get there. He added a sign for his home town. Then another soldier’s sign was added. And another. And that was the birth of the Sign Post Forest. It has grown quite a bit since the 1940s.

You could wander in here for days checking out the signs. I spotted a sign with the name of the mayor of a friend’s hometown in Ohio. I texted Mike to see if he knew of the former mayor. He did. Small world!

We, of course, came prepared. Knowing this was on our route, James made us a sign while we were still home in Las Cruces.

Now to find a spot for the sign. We had with us a step stool and a drill to aid in the installation.

We found a spot! We are now immortalized in the Sign Post Forest.
The sign is made from Colorcore plastic (white core with blue laminate on both sides). I suspect the sign will outlive us.
How many signs are in the Sign Post Forest? We spotted this display in the Visitor’s Center. As of 2022, over 100,000 signs. I asked how they count them. Individually? No….they don’t have that kind of time. But they do know how many posts they have and on average how many signs per post. From there, it’s just math.

I’ve been saving this photo below since we visited Dawson Creek. Near Mile Post Zero is the Dawson Creek Sticker Forest! Get it? Sign Forest…Sticker Forest!!!! This cracked me up. Apparently putting stickers on “Welcome to” signs is a big deal here. Dawson City has embraced it.

We, alas, do not have stickers with us!

Our next post will be about Alaska sights (finally).

Just a final note. It is not the summer solstice yet, that won’t be until June 21st. That date, the sun won’t set if you are above the Arctic Circle. We aren’t that far north, but we are far enough north that the sun is not setting until around 11 pm and rising before 4 am. Those are some short nights. We have been told (and agree with) pulling the black out shades in the RV when we settle in for the evening. That tricks your brain into acknowledging that it’s night time. By doing this, we haven’t had any trouble sleeping.

This excess of daylight is also preventing us from seeing the Northern Lights. Even when it is dark, it’s not really dark. So any northern lights sightings are going to have to wait until late July or so when the nights are longer.

The road is calling. On to the next adventure.

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4 thoughts on “Adventures along the Alaska Highway”

    1. Corinne Post author

      Really? They took signs down? That would be a disappointment. That would have been funny if I had found your sign. But there are sooooo many of them! We will be through Watson Lake again on our way back south in September…give me an idea of where you sign is and I’ll look for it.

    1. Corinne Post author

      The hot springs were so nice! And you bring up a good point about the map. People have no idea of the distances involved to get to Alaska. I may have to elaborate on that!

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