Road trip through the Alaskan Highway has been one of our adventurous with wild life encounters and breathtaking views. In this journey, Watson lake is one of our recommended places to stop and spend a few hours before moving on.
Watson Lake Signpost Forest and Information Center
It was 1942 and an US soldier working on the construction of the Alaska Highway put up the very first signpost indicating the direction and miles to his hometown. Tradition caught on and there are over 90,000 sign posts all over this place. Visitors can hang their own signs or make a quick one from the tools available in the nearby store. We were dumbfounded to see the signposts from all over the world!
Adjacent to the Signpost forest is an Information Center. The staff were extremely helpful in providing us all the information we needed. To top all there there was free coffee and wifi. It was great to get connected after 2 days of no service!
Camping @ Watson Lake Airport
While we were at Dawson Creek, we were searching for free campsites along the way. To our surprise, we found an airport! Yes, you can boondock at the Watson Lake airport.
This is a fully functional airport. The only choice of destination is Whitehorse, Yukon which is 275 miles (440 kms) from Watson Lake. The service is provided twice a week. Needless to say, it is not a busy terminal. On our 1 night stay, it was pretty quite and we were the only people camping out there. The airport has clean restrooms which was very convenient.
There are a few dedicated free camping spots near the lake. Unfortunately, we arrived after dark and we were not able to navigate our way around since it had rained pretty badly. Far end corner of Airport’s parking lot was more than enough for us!
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