Damn it’s cold.

August 25, 2026

It’s been a couple days since I’ve written and I think we left off at Watson Lake. I was driving away when I remembered what it was known for – the SignPost Forest. It contains something like 100,000 signs that travelers have left. It was started in 1942 by an Illinois Army guy who was working on the highway, and was designated a Yukon  Historic site in 2013. Kinda neat, look it up. I was so disappointed by how dirty the town was that I didn’t bother to stop again to go into the forest. I’m not much of a “tourist” traveler, anyway. I’d much rather hang out somewhere quiet than have to deal with crowds of people at the popular spots.

I went through seemingly never-ending mountains again. Everything is so ridiculously beautiful. I feel like every five minutes I’m oohing or aahing at a lake or river.

The wildflowers are wonderful, and I would like to do this drive in spring sometime. Lupine is everywhere – I think that might be Alaska’s state flower? And wild roses, I think I saw an Alberta license plate with that on it. Also yarrow, which was unexpected. I’ve never loved yarrow, but it is blooming everywhere like a weed and is very pretty. For all the folks in Ohio who complain about the deer – lupine and yarrow survive with grazers like bear, moose, caribou, bison. I also saw a great planting of the really prickly perennial with the spiky ball flowers – maybe sea holly? I’ve never seen anyone with that in their garden in Ohio (although everyone sells it), but again, no one wants to eat it. 

Dragonflies seem to be everywhere, and they are enormous. Same with the ravens – they’ve been a constant since Montana and are the size of small dogs. 

Canada does a great job of putting informational signs in all of the rest stops and roadside pull-offs. History of the highway, famous people the towns are named after, local native tribes, animal species. My favorite one was a black and white photo of a couple men in suit and tie and hat (mud covered), leaning on a car (mud covered) that wasn’t much more advanced than a Model T. The car tires were on huge wood planks and a trickling brook and mud was the foundation. I don’t remember their names, but they were scouting out a path for the Alaska Highway and using the wood planks to make tracks for the car. Can you imagine being that kind of explorer? It’s crazy enough driving on already-paved roads. 

Speaking of, I’ve hit the frost heave section of the highway. It’s kind of fun, but slow going. The heaves are like giant mounds in the road, but they run pretty evenly across the entire road so as long as you go slow it’s no big deal. Not like potholes. But I can’t seem to remember to drive slow. I start daydreaming while staring at mountains and trees and all of a sudden I’m going 70 (mph, not kph) and the van drops out from below me and all the stuff on my shelves bounces and Lucy angrily headbutts me and my seat becomes a trampoline. And then I drive slow for about 45 seconds until I start daydreaming again. 

It’s not hard to daydream; very few cars are around now, and most are heading south. I stopped at the Caribou RV campground last night and the guy told me that school started this week and if I had shown up three days earlier I wouldn’t have gotten a space. This campground was pretty odd. The proprietors were (maybe) German, and the big sign on the highway boasted that they can greet you in five different languages. A French chef and an Austrian chef were there working and the restaurant had wine tasting menus and much fancier stuff than I’d imagine in a camp. An outdoor bar had TVs, and at one point Lucy and I walked by and a bunch of people were playing bingo. 

Possibly I could have been social, but this was the first time in over two weeks that I got wifi inside my van, and all I could do was catch up on crossword puzzles and veg out with Netflix. I didn’t do laundry, didn’t clean the van, just laid in bed and watched reruns of Community. Lucy refused to get out of bed so I didn’t either. It felt good to do nothing productive for an evening.

They also had a weird bathroom system, unlike any I’ve seen before. Four bathrooms in a building, and each had a toilet, sink, and shower. Which sounds good at first, but if four people were showering or peeing, I couldn’t brush my teeth in a sink. I feel like it would be a disaster when the camp was full. They had some pit toilets, but who would use those if you could help it?

There was also a motorcycle camp, and each space had a hard-sided tent with a bed and a big covered porch so people could work on their bikes under shelter. I don’t think I’ve gone 10 minutes during the entire Canadian portion of this trip without seeing a motorcycle on the road. I’m surprised how many there are, strapped with giant bags of gear, spare tires, gas cans, tents, and wow does it look like hard work. 

While I had internet I was able to look a couple things up, because I had a feeling that the tiny Yukon towns were crushing gas prices everywhere else. So here it is:

1 liter = .264172 gal or 1 gal = 3.78541 liter

1 usd = 1.38 cad

So the highest I paid for gas was $2.75cad/liter. Which is $1.99usd/liter, multiplied by 3.78541 gives you…

$10.40/gallon usd oh my god.

I do not want to see my credit card bill this month. 

Now that we’re nearing our destination (meaning hundreds of miles, not thousands), I’m gonna start slowing down. I pulled into another campground for tonight, very quiet and nestled up to a river. Lake Creek campground, one of the province-run sites. These are beautiful sites with lots of nature and space, quiet and cheap ($20cad). This one has giant piles of free firewood in little shelters, and zero trash on the ground. The downside is no running water, laundry, shower, but I much prefer these. Also no campground host, so if people are assholes you have no one to go to. But these provincial sites are everywhere, either parks or camps or hiking trails. Canadians must really love their camping. 

Right as I took this photo of the empty campground, Lucy grabbed a giant mouthful of something disgusting. I should have printed out ID photos for large animal poop, it’s everywhere. So gross. She is no longer allowed to lick me.

Lucy, as you may know, is a Plott hound. Brought from Germany to the US by a guy named Plott to hunt bears, also the state dog of North Carolina. She is in heaven with all these new animal smells, as she’s a type of scent hound. She might make me stand in one spot for five minutes so she can analyze an area. I’m hoping that this dog, who is scared of plastic bags, will remember her heritage and stand up to a bear if we ever come across one. But I bought bear spray, just in case.

I finally figured out a sign that had been puzzling me at the provincial sites. I don’t remember the exact wording, but it means that you cannot smoke pot in the campground – unless you have paid for a campsite. Then it’s fine. 

When I pulled in here I was alone. I drove through the entire place (which took 30 minutes to walk around for an idea of the size – fairly big), and not a single other person. But I don’t expect that to last, everyone has to stop somewhere for the night. 

It’s nice that I missed tourist season, but not nice that it’s getting pretty freaking cold. I haven’t gone digging in my van for long pants, but I’ll be forced to do that in a couple days. For now I’m wearing a sweatshirt and a jacket, wool socks, boots, and shorts. 

I’ve started recognizing the people traveling in the same direction as me. One woman and I are like the tortoise and the hare. I drive crazy fast, but not for long. She drives slow, but longer time. We generally end up near each other every night, or I pass her sometime during the day, or see each other at a gas station. She camped next to me one night, and her RV was very distinctive. It had a black front with a boxy white body. And Swiss plates. Now I see her everywhere. Which is weird, in a way. I have certain pieces of clothing that are just super comfortable to drive in. And yes, sometimes I wear things longer than maybe I should. But I’m clean, so I don’t care. Anyway, one day I thought ‘this woman has seen me wearing the same skort three days in a row’ and I got very self-conscious. Chances are she didn’t notice.

I haven’t seen any new animals since my last post, except a furry brown squirrel-like rodent with a short tail that runs across roads as soon as I get close to them. Death-wish rats. And I found my rivet gun and fixed my shelf. Everything else is holding steady, even after catching air.

Bison are probably my favorite land-based animal, and I hope I see more. One pull-off had a few signs about bison, and how they were nearly extinct but are starting to come back. There are two types: Wood bison and Plains bison. And the Plains bison have the scientific name: Bison bison bison. That just seems lazy.

I should get to Tok tomorrow, my first Alaskan stop. I’ve heard a bit about a wildfire there, the Mukluk fire, but I don’t know what the current situation is. Tok is a town that you have to go through in most cases, both into and out of Alaska. With so many travelers leaving Alaska, I imagine it’ll be sorted when I get there. At least the roads near the highway. Lots of rain in the forecast for the next week, so I’ll see tonight, I guess.

As a side note, I absolutely love listening to Canadian radio when I can get a signal. Especially the news shows right now, all of which talk so much shit about our pedophile president. When Canadians decide not to be friendly, they do a good job.