June 7, 2012 – Downtown RV Park, Watson Lake, Yukon Territory, Canada

We left the campground in Fort Nelson this morning about 8:15 with a light drizzle coming down, after having rained all night. The rain soon let up and as we climbed into the mountains we had fog. Thick FOG! You could see only 50 feet or so ahead at some points and we were going up and down and turning back and forth. We had to have the wipers on most of the time because there was always a mist. To make matters worse, the rain had loosened rocks on the cliffs above the road and there were several times we had to swerve to miss them. Also we were stopped at one area by highway workers because there was a foot or so of water running over the road and part of the road had eroded away.

Surprise, Large Rock on road

Around noon, we stopped at the Laird Hot Springs. After paying our fee of $5 each, we changed into our bathing suits in the camper then walked about 10 minutes down a wooden boardwalk to the hot springs. They had a large pool with 4 individual sets of steps down into the pools. There were a dozen or so people already there and they suggested we enter at the left end because it wasn’t quite as hot as the right side. The book we have says the temperature ranged from 108 to 126 degrees. Where we entered it was about like a very warm/hot bath. The bottom of the “pool” was lined with small smooth pebbles. It wasn’t really a pool, the water was clear, but the side away from the dock was a grass covered river bank. I tried to walk up to the other end, but it was just too hot for me. There was on overflow area at the end where we entered that went into still another pool area that we were told was a little cooler yet but the bottom was not lined with the little rocks and was kind of muddy. There were a couple of people in that part with 5 or 6 kids of varying ages.

Karen in the HOT Water

Laird Hot Spring

Prior to getting to the Hot Springs, we had not seen any wild life. The people we talked with there had come from the other direction and said they had seen lots of animals. After we left there we started seeing wildlife too. We saw several buffalo at different times, sometimes there would be one by itself, sometimes as many as 10 together. We saw 5 black bears (each by itself) and one brown bear.

BIG Buffalo

This town is the home of the “Signpost Forest” where people put up signs with their name or hometown on them. Larry came prepared and brought an old license plate we had with our name. There are thousands of signs!

Our Sign

Just part of the Sign Post Forest

About 2 or 3 days ago we started noticing there were more and more campers pulling into the campgrounds about the same time as we did. Then in the morning, we’re all leaving about the same time. Larry called last night to get us a spot at the campground we are at tonight. They told him when we checked in that we were smart to have done that and suggested we call tonight for tomorrow night as there are 3 caravans traveling together going the same route (there really are no other routes). I called and reserved the next one in Whitehorse for 2 nights so we can spend a little time there and do a little laundry. Now, they have come around to tell us the road is closed about 30 miles north of here due to a mud slide. If it is not open by tomorrow morning I guess we’ll stay here for another night and get caught up on our laundry while we’re here.