Sunday, July 6

The big event of today's drive was wildlife sightings: two herds of wild buffalo and four separate black bears . Shortly after the first buffalo sighting, we approached the Coal River Lodge (mile 514), which promised good buffalo burgers; who could resist that? In truth, they were about the best we had ever tasted. We crossed the 60th parallel, the boundary between British Columbia and the Yukon, and at Contact Creek we passed the point where the southern and northern segments of the highway were joined in September, 1942.

The only town of any significance along this stretch is Watson Lake, whose claim to fame is its forest of signposts, numbering over 60,000, placed there by travelers from all over the world. It all began in 1942 with a homesick soldier from Danville, Illinois, who hung up a sign to his home town while he was working on the construction of the Alaska Highway. We didn't search long enough to find New Haven, but we did see one from Danvers, Massachusetts, the town next to the one in which we were married. It was quite amazing how many were from Germany.

According to our map, we had left the Rockies behind without crossing the Continental Divide; we did that in the next range to the west, the Cassiar Mountains, at mile 699. In terms of the topography, it was much less dramatic than our crossing from Lake Louise to Field, but once we got over it, we entered the realm of the Pacific Salmon, which makes its way almost this far. A salmon bake awaited us at our day's destination, Mukluk Annie's Salmon Bake and RV Park, on beautiful Lake Teslin, where if you eat at the restaurant they give you a free campsite for the night and take you for a boat ride across the lake. Chuck, our captain, has taught the resident herring gulls to catch pieces of bread in the air, offering numerous photo opportunities. The picture of our campsite on the lake was taken at 10:45 pm.