Friday, July 8 - Dawson Creek, British Columbia to Watkins Lake, Yukon

What a day!  This was a day for breath taking scenery and LOTS of animal encounters.   The Google Street View vehicles were parked next to our Jeeps at the hotel.    They are going to Alaska for a project.    A number of construction workers were staying at our hotel last night also.   They told us that they came in late and if they had been any drunker they would have all tested out my Bumper Dumpers.......YUCK.

We started off the morning for breakfast at the "World Famous" Fort Nelson Inn.   It rained on and off for about half the day, sometimes quite hard but the water brought to life the colors of nature and even cleaned all the mosquitoes off of my Hella lights.  We saw what appeared to be a vintage military dump truck and wondered if it had anything to do with the construction of the Alaska Highway in 1942.   We stopped at the Toad River Lodge because we heard that thousands of hats the people have given up over the years lined the ceiling.   They had a special place for military covers, boonie hats and berets that our troops have autographed.  John added a hat of his to their collection.   In the early afternoon we came across a beautiful blue-green lake, Lake Muncho which means big lake in a native language.  Shortly passed the lake we passed a modern day hippie protesting the war by walking from Whitehorse Canada to Vancouver Canada.   He has a long way to go and has been on the road a month now.   Let's see,  we will be in Whitehorse tomorrow.   The group had lunch at Laird River hot springs, a volcanic heated pool with the strong smell of sulfur.  Some of the brave ones took a dip,  I was told it was nearly scalding in places.

The last 100km's today were some of the best.    We saw over a dozen black bears, a grizzly and her two clubs, a brown bear,  dozens of bison, a brown bear and some free ranging horses.   All of them along the road and no more than 50 feet from our vehicles.  Lots of good pictures.

The end of the day found us in the Yukon Territory and Watson Lake.   Some of the guys decided to hotel it and some of us camped.   At 12:20 am it is still not quite dark,   kinda like a Phoenix night at 7:45 pm.

Tomorrow we head to Whitehorse Canada and the next day we finally make Alaska.    Its hard to believe it was a week ago today that we began our journey.    P.S.   It is colder than............well you know what I mean.   Freezing up here now and we are still 1000 miles from Arctic Circle.   Enjoy the pictures!

Fort Nelson

Old Army Truck

It rained like cats and dogs part of the day

The clouds cover the mountain peaks

Muncho Lake

 The Hippie (Could this have been Lance in the 60's :-)

Laird River Hot Springs

Mamma Griz and one of her cubs - we were about 30 feet away in the safety of our ZJ

More of Mamma Griz

Bison along road

 More Bears

 Free ranging ponies

Hats on ceiling of Toad River Lodge

Finally in Yukon Territory