2018/07 Arctic Part 1 - Liard & Watson Lake |
|||||
We came to two adult bears eating close to each other, which we assumed to be a mating pair, as bears aren’t usually buddies.
 |
Two bears (0.45) |
 |
|---|
Nearby was a good-sized bison herd, a few dozen animals, strung out along the highway.
|
Bison (1.33) |
 |
|---|
The 
bison just love the grass that grows along the highway’s verges and they spend their lives on the highway. Further along was yet another bear and yet more bison.
We were headed for Liard Hot Springs and wasted some time driving up and down before we remembered that the entrance labelled “campground“ was also the one for day visits. We were getting changed 
into our swimming gear when we heard gunshots and saw this large bull bison trotting through the parking area. It was being pursued by the ranger on the right with a starting pistol. As he passed us his pistol went “click” and he was fumbling for more ammo; no Dirty Harry skills.
The walkway to the springs goes through meadows partly flooded with lukewarm water. The heat from the 
springs enables plants like fleabane and monkey flowers to survive, hundreds of miles north of their normal range. The springs have been “tamed” with steps and changing rooms on one side, but the remainder is left in its natural state. We didn’t bother with the warm pool.
I took some pictures of us in the hot pool and then tried to get to the far end, where very hot 
water falls into the pool and also comes up through the sand under your feet. I managed to pick up a rock and 
stack it on the end wall; I don’t think the water was quite as hot as when Edna did it in 2005.
The “hanging gardens” above the pool had been closed on our previous trips because of “problem bears” in the area, but this time it was open and we were able to go see the waterfall and the tufa formations created by the minerals in the water, and the flowers too.
On our way back we found numerous sundew plants around the boardwalk. These are the little plants that entice bugs onto their sticky leaves and then digest them. They seem to thrive in swampy environments.
I remembered a really neat camping spot we’d found in 2005, just upstream from Whirlpool Canyon on the Liard River. The Liard is a massive river and it must have encountered really hard rock as this point as the river turns sharply to its right, giving us this spectacular view. We found a spot to perch above the access track. It would have been a great opportunity to sit outside and watch the river but the bugs were out in force, mainly mosquitoes but also biting flies.
|
Liard River (0.13) |
 |
|---|
Friday June 29th ‘
We had a cloudy morning and were soon back on the highway. We saw another fox; this one was munching away 
on something.
|
Fox (0.18) |
 |
|---|
We saw another bear too, this one on the edge of the forest, reluctant to be seen.
|
Shy bear (0.09) |
 |
|---|
Then there was another bear, this one marching along the highway as if it was on a mission.
|
Bear on mission (0.18) |
 |
|---|
The highway runs along the 60th parallel and we kept crossing into the Yukon and back into BC. We’d covered about 1200 miles 
already and we were only just leaving BC; it’s a big province. We came to Watson Lake, Gateway to the Yukon, It’s a useful gateway. with a great visitor’s centre. They gave us maps and brochures, showed us a movie about the building of the Alaska Highway, and gave us access to their water supply to fill our tanks. The town has a supermarket, dump station, fuel, and a really odd attraction, the Signpost Forest. It was started back in the 1940s when a homesick soldier put up signpost to his home town. Now there are tens of thousands of them from all over the world.