Left around 8:00 this morning and headed east on the Alaska Hiway for Watson Lake. I had stayed in Watson Lake on the way up (home of the signpost forest) but didn’t get to see much of the terrain between Watson Lake and Whitehorse because it was raining Grizzly Bears and Moose. It’s pretty typical of what I’ve seen up here, with the terrain getting more mountainous the further east we went. This was about 100 miles east of Whitehorse, just east of Teslin Crossing:
In the same area is Teslin Lake. The picture below was taken along the lake shore:
Along the roadside about 60 miles east of Whitehorse is Johnson’s Crossing, where the hiway crosses the Teslin River. During the building of the Alaska Hiway, the decision was made to tap into oil fields in the Northwest Territories, build an oil refinery in Whitehorse, build a road and oil pipeline to connect the two, and then to distribute fuels, etc. via pipeline all along the Alaska Hiway rather than bringing it in by road or by ship. The plaque below tells the story, but at Johnson’s crossing and along the Canol Road, there are the remains of equipment brought in for the project. I didn’t go far, afraid it would rain and I would be riding thru mud again:
Between Swift River and Rancheria we crossed the Continental Divide, basically a bump in the road. To the east all the rivers flow to the McKenzie River and then to the Beaufort Sea and into the Arctic Ocean, and to the west they flow into the Yukon River and into the Bering Sea.
A little further down the road was Rancheria Falls, on the (you guessed it!) Rancheria River. Nice little rest area and nice little break:
Arrived in metropolitan Watson Lake around 3:30 or so. I’ll be leaving the Alaska Hiway behind tomorrow and headed down Hwy 37, the Cassiar Highway through central British Columbia toward Prince George, BC. Miles today: 273. Total: 6,859.
