After leaving Ed and Leigh, the rain clouds finally parted and I continued on to my first Yukon campsite: Watson Lake. This small city in the Yukon hosts one of the most under-rated tourist icons in Canada: the Sign Post Forest. The forest was started in 1942 by a homesick American soldier, who planted a sign with mileage pointing towards his home. As others followed, the forest has grown to a current total of approximately 65,000 signs. I strolled through and managed to find a few from northwest Calgary, just to make sure. The small museum at the Watson Lake Visitor’s Centre located next to the forest is a great gateway to the Yukon’s flora and fauna. Despite the week of rain I couldn’t help but feel elated and excited; I had finally arrived in my first Canadian territory, the Yukon!
During July, the side of the highway is littered with families of bison. Standing around 6 feet tall and weighing over 2000lbs, these nonchalant beasts can be considerably intimidating to a lone cyclist – especially when they’re relaxing in the limited shoulder (or even most of the right-hand lane). I’m certainly not going to ask a lumbering bison to please excuse me and make space for me to pass. Eventually I recognised that there was nothing to be done (for my prairie friends who have tried cow tipping, imagine a cow that is twice the size, and with horns [I realise I have a very small audience for this parenthesis]) and I resolved to relax and carry on, around the monolithic bovids. As they hardly acknowledged me, it was ok. The sense of true wilderness was only occasionally broken by the rare passing vehicle, often honking or cheering their support as I pushed on towards Whitehorse.
