DAY 22 - Arriving in The Yukon!
After a super sketchy sleep on the side of the highway, we woke up bright and early to start our 2nd day of driving. We had our usual cereal breakfast, hopped in the truck and hit the Alaska highway once again.
The morning started off insanely foggy, so we slowed things down to avoid any unwanted run-ins with the morning wildlife. Within 10 minutes we saw a buck and doe on the side of the road eating some breakfast, but luckily this was our only morning encounter. Once we hit about 30 minutes into the trip, we had already lost all service on our phones, were done with driving, were ready to be there AND were stuck at a construction stop sign for 45 minutes. Alas, we pumped up the jams and kept going! We were super thrilled about having Sirius radio for this trip, but after listening to the same 5 stations and them each playing the same 15 songs, it's getting a little old already 😂
Soon enough though the sun started peaking out, the fog cleared, and the beautiful landscape of Northern BC showed it's true colours. The trees began to change from unlimited evergreens to scattered birch forests, and mixes of golden trees and wildflowers. It reminded us of fall and got us even more excited for our favourite season when we get back! As we continued along the highway, it started to become clear now why they called it the "Scenic Route to Alaska". We drove along the coast of so many turquoise rivers and lakes with the mountain cliffs an arm's length away from the road. This is when things started to get more interesting and the wildlife signs became more and more apparent.
In the morning, they teased us with some moose signs, but didn't measure up with any moose sightings. But once we got to this point, the mountain goat signs began. Now, these signs were also in many places through Alberta and we only saw one, so we didn't have our hopes up. But much to our surprise, we passed a cliff with about 3 mountain goats climbing and one greeting all the passers on the edge of the road! They definitely gave us a little pep in our driving lol
After a little while longer, we began to approach the boarderline of The Yukon. This is where the Buffalo signs appeared and we thought for sure it was too good to be true to ACTUAL see any Buffalo. But then dontcha know, we passed by an entire herd of them grazing along a field and couldn't believe our eyes. They were still pretty far away though so we didn't stop. Thinking there was no way we would see any more, we hammered down only to be surprised by a lone male buffalo nearly 10 ft away from the road!! We had to stop for this guy and admire him munching away on the grass beside us. We then proceeded to see buffalo scattered along the sides of the highway until we reached The Yukon Territory.
As we were passing one of the last towns before the Yukon, called Lower Post, we noticed the smoke roll in. It had been clear for so long, we almost forgot what the wildfire smoke was like. Instantly the visibility reduced, the smell poured through the vents and our throats became itchy. We hadn't ever experienced it this bad before, so we knew it was close. Minutes later we saw a helicopter in the sky spraying water, and side streets closed off with police officers. As we continued through the Alaska highway, we could see small fires burning on both sides of us! Where we were was clearly an aftermath so we knew we were safe, but we could see the burn further in and it was truly insane to witness it this upclose. The weirdest part was immediately after that area, the smoke cleared and we were in The Yukon!!
The sign came up so quick that we missed it and had to turn around to get our photo. We drove right up, hopped out and instantly were SWARMED with little bugs and blackflies ugh! We quickly took as many timed photos as we could and ran to the truck, swatting away. Even though we jumped in as quickly as we could, about 20 blackflies still joined us in the truck. So that was fun trying to kill them all before they got us!! Above is a great photo series of us trying to get a nice picture, for your viewing pleasure. Featured in those photos are also Zacks super cozy, matching jammies that he now loves ever so dearly 😊
We decided to stop for the night in a little town called Watson Lake, YT. They had cell service, a grocery store, gas and even a visitor centre. We first stopped in at the visitor centre and were greeted by an incredible Sign Post Forest. Apparently it was started in 1942 by a homesick, injured man in the military and now visitors all over the world add their own signs day by day! We had no idea this existed so we didn't come prepared, but we knew it probably wasn't the best idea to take a plate off the Ford to do so 😉 so we settled for what many other people did, grabbing our permanent marker and making our mark on the handrail of the bridge. It was truly a remarkable experience.
After getting lots of good ideas and an entire bag full of pamphlets from the lady working at the Visitor Centre (without any choice in the matter lol) we were ready to call it quits for the night. We gassed up, ate some dinner and pulled off the highway to get some rest. Tomorrow we are only a short 5 hours away from Whitehorse where we have an Airbnb to refresh after a couple days of driving!
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