Liard Hot Springs BC to Whitehorse YT

Leaving Liard Hot Springs this morning, we enjoyed more great scenery and a very busy day for wildlife on the road side.  We saw a black and then a brown bear, then an elk that was pretty much black (caught in those forest fires, I guess), then some bison.

At first we just saw this lone bison lumbering down the side of the road.  He was up on the rise, then angled down towards us and walked right along the side of the road.  You can't really make them out in the picture, but he's got a massive swarm of flies around him.  We knew bison were prevalent in the area, but felt very lucky to get to see one right up close like this!

A few minutes down the road we saw another bison running in the opposite direction beside the road.  We took several pictures of the first one, so we just slowed down but kept on riding this time.  One bison, pfft.

A few minutes after that we came across a whole herd of them grazing by the side of the road.  I estimated 20, and Dad counted 19.  Craziness!  I don't have much have a zoom on my camera, so I don't have any decent close ups, but they are quite an impressive beast.

A few more minutes down the road, and we find an even bigger herd spread out all over both sides of the road.  There had to be at least 40 of them, just grazing our laying around, sometimes just a few feet off the roadside.  I wanted to ride right up and snap some good close-ups, but I also wanted to live to ride another day so we stayed at a good distance then crept through on the yellow line.  I was expecting a herd of about 80 next, likely right in the middle of the road, perhaps driving cars or riding motorcycles.  Apparently we'd seen our fill of bison though, because this was it for the day.

We stopped for gas, breakfast, and info in Watson Lake, YT.  The info centre has a "forest" of signs all around it.  At first I thought it was just a few rows of signposts, but as we rode around the centre I realized there are hundreds of posts and thousands upon thousands of signs.  We didn't have time to wander the entire forest, but you could easily spend half a day looking for places you've been or lived.  I found Kanata, ON, a few places in VT and NH, a NB license plate, and quite a few from near Hudson's Hope BC.

There are forest fires burning just west of town at the top of the Stewart Cassiar Highway, and the whole down was full of smoke.  None of the shots I took really portray just how smokey it was, perhaps because having the smell permeate everywhere was part of the effect.  We want to take the Stewart Cassiar on our way back south, so we're hoping the fires are out by then.  It's been a really dry season for this area though, and we hear the fire is spreading quite quickly.

We arrived in Whitehorse in the early evening.  We didn't even think we'd really make it all the way today (Sat), else we would have left earlier so we could have arrived during business hours.  Now we have to wait until Monday morning before we can go to Yukon Honda and have the knobby tires we shipped up installed.

We stopped by the visitor's centre when we arrived to get help finding a campground and dinner.  They had one of those big topo maps with points of interest that light up.  Here is Dad lighting up the Dempster Highway and the Arctic Circle.