We left Liard Provincial Park and drove 160 miles to Watson Lake .  It was cloudy all day but it was still a beautiful drive.

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Watson’s Lake Sign Post Forest

The world famous Sign Post Forest has been attracting visitors since 1942. The tradition began during the construction of the Alaska Highway, when U.S. soldier Carl K. Lindley was recovering from an injury at an aid station in what has come to be known as Watson Lake, Yukon. A commanding officer asked Lindley to repair and erect directional signposts, and while completing the job, he added a sign that indicated the direction and mileage to his hometown of Danville, Illinois. Other homesick soldiers followed suit and the trend caught on eventually growing from a single signpost to a full “Forest”.

The Alaska Highway was constructed during the Second World War to provide a land based route to Alaska and ground support for the construction of runways and airstrips of the Northwest Staging Route. The Alaska Highway changed the landscape of the Yukon by increasing transportation routes, improving communication systems, altering settlement patterns and bringing new services and expanding economic opportunities throughout the territory.

The Sign Post Forest has expanded over the years to include licence plates, road signs, handmade plaques, and other quirky items that travellers leave behind, giving shoutouts to hometowns all over the world! Leave your mark today!

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Fun Facts.

• As of 2023, there were close to 100,000 signs in the Sign Post Forest

• The Sign Post Forest was designated a territorial historical site on August 30, 2013

• The pieces of heavy equipment found in the Forest were used during the construction of the Alaska Highway

• In 1992, while celebrating the 50th anniversary of the building of the Alaska Highway, Lindley and his wife returned to Watson Lake and erected a sign replicating Lindley's original sign

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We stayed at the Downtown RV Park which was nothing but a flat gravel parking lot, but it did have full hookups.  We were there with a Fantasy Tours Travel group with at least 14 Class As and 5th wheelers.  Several of the rigs had the Starlink receivers which seems like a good idea in this area because of lack of reception in many places.

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Trip Statistics

 

  • Downtown RV park  was 45.00 a night.  
  • We drove 160 miles in RV from Liard.  We’ve driven 4,686 in the RV and car so far.
  • We bought gas for  $5.177 a gallon for a total cost of $251.81.