After 1000 kilometres of the Alaska Highway since leaving Dawson Creek, I temporarily leave Britsh Columbia for a short stop in the Yukon.
Watson Lake is a settlement that has no obvious current reason to exist. Nevertheless, this community has developed around the Highway, and seems to be modestly prospering. One of its few claims to fame is the ‘Sign Post Forest‘, which has to be seen to be believed.
A lady sitting at a table in the supermarket sells me a raffle ticket to raise funds for the Yukon team to go to the Canadian Over 55s Games. She’s almost childishly excited when I explain that I will have to give her a French address and phone number to put on the ticket stub – she almost certain that she will be the only person to have sold to someone from France. Things get even better for her when she discovers that we both have daughters living in Victoria. I’m delighted when she tells me that I have made her day.
Soon after leaving Watson Lake, I turn south on to the Cassiar-Stewart Highway. This will be my route through some of the most remote parts of British Columbia, with no mobile phone coverage for hundreds of kilometres. The road is narrower than the Alaska Highway, with very little in the way of verges, and generally no centre markings. It’s also very much quieter. In the course of the next 200km I meet only 21 vehicles coming the other way, and see none going in my direction.
The scenery is less dramatic than on the Alaska Highway, with largely coniferous forest making up much of the landscape. There are some strange patches, where frozen lakes sit among the bare standing remnants of earlier wild fires.
The wildlife is also less impressive. There are plenty of squirrels, often adopting suicidal poses in front of my approaching vehicle. They dart to one side at the very last moment, invariably leaving me tensed for the imaginary thump that will mean their bloody end.
Dease Lake, the settlement, is at the southern end of a long sequence of lakes, alongside which passes the newly renovated switchback of a road. I arrive early, for a welcome stop at the comfortable Arctic Divide Lodge.
