May 27, Watson Lake

                                            Watson Lake

                                          We parked at the launch and the lake is behind us.

This morning when I took Sadie for her morning walk down to the river, I heard something like someone throwing a stone in the water.  I was curious and walked a little closer.  It was a beaver diving into the water! He swam a round for the longest time slapping his tale, obviously irritated I had intruded in his morning.  What a treat for me.  I have seen beaver dams but I have never seen one close up.  Of course this was one time I didn't have my camera.  I was sure Sadie would bark and scare him away but she just stared at him and the beaver kept a close eye on us.

I drove my rig into the Town of Watson Lake and parked at Wye Lake.  They have a dump and water there and area for day parking.  It had been warm and I didn't want to leave Sadie all day in the rig, so this gave me the opportunity to check on her between excursions.  Everything is in walking distance except for the airport which I really didn't care about.  Later in the day I walked the trail around the lake and Sadie was able to get a swim in.

                                           Wye Lake

During the construction of the Alaska Canada Highway one of the workers was homesick and he put up a sign pointing to his home town and that began the tradition of posting hometown signs.  There are over 65,000 signs posted from all parts of the world.  Anyone can post a sign and new posts are installed when space runs out.

                                            These are just a few of the signs.

We surprised Bill and made a sign for our group.

I didn't have a sign, so I put up a WIN sticker on a post especially for stickers.

We attended the Northern Lights movie about the boreal lights.  The folks at the visitor claim Watson Lake is a perfect place to see them in the winter.  Another plus for the center is that they have computers so you can check email. There was a waiting line and I was glad  I had gone to the library earlier to use the internet. They did not have wireless internet so I had to use one of the library computers.  It was pretty old but at least it worked.  It's been a long time since I used a PC.  The libraries are government funded and most of the small villages don't have many services.  Usually the villages have their own power plant and water sources which may be subsidized by the government.

The movie had lots of video of the lights similar to the bill board.