A year and a half ago, I’m not sure I knew anything about the Yukon, other than it was apart of Canada and that no one lived there. (Correction 34,000 people live there, outnumbered by both caribou at 160,000 and moose at 70,000). That all changed when I was in Dublin last spring, and met an energetic Canadian named Jen, who called the Yukon home. She became one of my lifelines in Dublin, a great friend, and reminded me of a little Canadian Blythe with her full spiritedness and zest for life. When in Dublin, we talked a lot about where we were from, and I found out a lot about the town of Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon Territories. Today, I stood on the roadside of the Alaskan Highway and took a picture with the Yukon Territories sign. We are currently en route to Whitehorse. I never would’ve thought I’d make it…but I put it on “my list”, a year ago, and today I can cross it off. We crossed the border into the Yukon and made a stop in Watson Lake, right over the border. Lindsay really wanted to go down this waterslide into a lake that we passed, but unfortunately it was closed and the slide was surrounded in barbed wire. I’m guessing they have a trespassing issue. We made another stop at a Yukon Landmark called Sign Post Forest and as the name suggests, it is a forest of road signs and other miscellaneous signs. It all started with one guy from Danville, IL putting up a sign in 1942 and now Sign Post Forest has over 68,000 signs from all over the world left by people who’ve visited Watson Lake. A picture tells a thousand words at how cool this sight is, so given our limited technology I suggest you google “Sign Post Forest Watson Lake, YT” to get a better idea. Originally we had brought along an old “Papa M1” license plate for good juju, but somewhere along the road we decided that we’d leave it in Watson Lake. We both agreed that Grandpa would kind of like having a momento of him in the Yukon Territories and that he’d be proud of his granddaughters for conquering the unknown and being adventurous. And so now a piece of our Papa and a piece of ourselves remains in the Yukon, a reminder of our adventure, and that we were there and so was the spirit of all those who we love and that love us.
All the signs were cool, so many people had crossed these paths, many en route to Alaska. We saw signs from Saukville, Milwaukee, and Pewaukee, WI and Antioch and Sycamore, IL among a TON of others. People hung anything they had with them on these posts, including bed pans, a cowboy boot, a canoe paddle, a toilet seat… and a thousand road signs for towns, villages, and cities all around the world. And just like us, people had left license plates. Maybe some of you will venture to Alaska someday, and if you do, maybe you’ll pass through Watson Lake on the Alaskan Highway…and in midst of all the thousands of signs, you’ll find ours, and maybe you won’t know the story behind it, and maybe you’ll wonder who PAPA M1 is, from Wisconsin. But you’ll see it, and you’ll know that we were there and we left a piece of ourselves, a reminder to seek out the unknown, and not to wait to do it. A year and a half ago, I didn’t care anything about the Yukon, but I made a friend, I found an interest, and we decided to go. Because life is short, and if you aren’t enjoying your journey, what are you doing?
From the road…
-B
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