July 5

With no church available to attend we hit the road. The scenery today was back to a wide, forest-lined highway and rolling hills with the usual lakes and streams. The first number of miles showed where a recent (this spring) wildfire had destroyed much forest at least along the highway that we could see. We drove to near Rancheria Falls Recreation Site, about half way between Watson Lake and Teslin, Yukon Territory for a total of just over 200 miles. We are just reaching snow-capped mountains again. We gassed up in Watson Lake soon after entering the Yukon Territory. Watson Lake has a huge “signpost forest” with signs and personal notes left from all over the world. It probably covers well over an acre and there were over 61,000 signs posted at last count in 2006. One has to ask, “How did they all get there.” The day started out with a lot of wildlife sightings with a fox, a couple of buffalo herds and three black bears in the first few miles. Later we met a sage hen with a chick on the trail to the Rancheria Falls which were actually two falls on the same stream, one on each side of an island. They were not very high but were nevertheless quite pretty. Earlier we also visited a place on the Liard River where a huge eddy creates a whirlpool where an unbelievable amount of trees and logs are piled up that have been carried down the river to this “cove” at high water.