Sign Forests, Bears and Bison

Sign Forests, Bears and Bison

We are continuing down the Alaska Highway toward Watson Lake.

This is another town that was an important staging area for the Alaska Highway.

It is a refueling place along the highway now, and its claim to fame is a sign forest, which by recent count has almost 69,000 signs from all over the world.

We didn’t  find a sign for San Diego, although I’m sure there is one.  But we did find one for Hemet.  And since there is a story in our family about my getting lost on the way to Palm Springs and going through Hemet several times, we have a saying, “All roads lead to Hemet.”  I think it’s true!

We found one for Blake, and a Scottish one that John thought our friend Ken  McIntyre could relate to.

Hey, this sign for the geographical center of the US -- I thought it was in Nebraska where my sister lives.  Who makes these things up?

The topography continues to change along these roads, with barren, but beautiful mountains and picturesque rivers.

We came upon a bear alongside the road.  It is getting increasingly hard to stop for pictures on this now busy highway, but we managed to catch this one.  He was on a mission – which was to cross the road, and he did so behind us.

A little later on, we passed a bison!

 We were going to fast for pictures, and we thought they traveled in herds, so we were surprised to see a lone one.  However, down a road a little further, we saw another one, and this time we got our picture.

We later discovered that there are only about 100 of them, so we were pretty lucky to see two!

All kinds of things are being done to try to keep them from being killed by motorists, including these wide vegetation areas, and more signage, salt licks, and paths created in the grass, or plowed into the snow that divert them from the road.