The Northern Lights Centre -- Watson Lake, Yukon

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The Northern Lights Centre offers a spectacular Northern Lights viewing for people during the summer when they can't see them for themselves because it's too bright most of the time and there is almost no night. During the show they freely offer a number of the myths and legends that relate to the Northern Lights (or the Aurora Borealis) that were introduced by Gold Rushers and Indian People alike.

They also sometimes show a short program on space.

We had a lot of fun and I think that all families should go there.

The Signpost Forest -- Watson Lake, Yukon

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The sign post forest is a spot that all families should go to. Inside the info center there is a small museum about the building of the Alaska Highway and the Yukon. When we went into the museum we had a little fun looking at the things in there. These included a couple of dioramas, and a number of billboards with a bunch of information on the Yukon and the highway.

Another fun part was looking at the signs and seeing all the places people came from. We saw a lot of plates from Oregon and other spots. There were license plates, wooden boards with writing on them, and a number of city limit signs. There was a plastic bottle with a note inside, nailed to one of the signposts. There were a couple of toilet seats, two spots where we saw ONE boot (not related to each other!), a smooshed soccer ball and a couple of other weird things!

We put up our own signs for The ROCK (Middle Bass Island), a license plate from Denver, and a small thing about James. If you have a sign, you can go into the visitor's center and they will let you borrow a hammer and some nails.

Every family should come here and look at the signs!

The Signpost Forest -- Watson Lake, Yukon

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Of all the things that we did there, the BEST THING of all was thinking up our own signs. What made this the best was that even though we had help, we got to choose and stick up our own things for our signs.

I found that sitting around and staying so long was probably the MOST BORING. Part of why it was so boring was because there wasn't very much to do other than walk around and look at signs and play pretend which I don't always want to do.

FAMILIES should definitely come here and you have to bring and put up your own sign. If you don't have one, you can get wood from the hardware store to make one.

Liard Hot Springs

We had only one regret about stopping at these hot springs---that we didn't plan for a longer stay so we could take two or three dips instead of just one!

This place is amazing--the hot mineral water is very relaxing (similar to Glenwood Hot Springs in Colorado) BUT the pools here are mostly natural shaped. You can relax in the water, enjoying blue skies above, tall trees surrounding the pool, and mosses and ferns decorating the banks. The end closest to the hot spring also had a pretty waterfall which helped cool the water down a little bit.




Randy enjoyed challenging himself to see how close he could get to the actual hot spring itself---without boiling!! He learned from a young hotshot that as long as you keep your arms moving to sweep the hottest water away from you, it's okay. Saner me (?!) declined to try it!


There is also a cooler area at one end, past a small waterfall, which was great for Jakob and Anna. They liked that it wasn't so hot and I liked that it was shallow enough not to have to worry about them :-)

We will DEFINITELY return here again---and plan at least an overnight next time! (Thanks, Dad, for urging us to stop here!)

Liard Hot Springs

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Liard Hotsprings has two different springs as part of it even though it sounds like one spring to me. The two springs are called the alpha spring and the beta spring, the first one (alpha) is cooler and has a shallow bottom to it.

The second one (beta) is farther into the woods, is hotter, and is deep enough that you cant really touch the bottom even though you wouldn't want to touch it because its slimy. [Beta pool is in the above picture]

The alpha pool is in a crescent shape that splits into two parts, one that's a little bit hotter and the other part which is cooler which where me and anna went. We found two thick short logs that were floating inn the water as well as two tree trunks that span the width that we climbed onto and slid off of for entertainment.

It's great fun that all families should go to, and bring your kids!!

Liard Hot Springs -- BC

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the BEST thing: Sitting under the waterfall! The area that we swam in was fun cuz it had some logs. You can pretend that they are a boat! It was NOT a swimming pool...it was a NATURAL place.

the HARDEST thing: having to leave when we wanted to stay!!!

the WORST thing: It was a very hard time to put our feet in the water. My feet STUNG all over! It was TOO hot. We got in the big pool for a little bit, but then we went to the pool at the end, past the waterfall cuz it was much more comfy.

FAMILIES: should definitely come here. Even if you are going past here, you should stop here for a couple of hours at least---especially if you have kids! The kids area is shallow enough you don't have to know how to swim.

Muncho Lake BC

Plans--written 4/25/09

This is where the Alaskan Highway crosses the Rocky Mountains. Muncho Lake is supposed to be a beautiful example of a mountain lake. We hope to stay here overnight. We have a reservation for a lakeside RV site---but as of April 30th the RV park is still covered with snow. Hopefully it thaws enough for us to stay here on May 13th!

I'm sure we will have plenty of photos of the area when we pass through...

Review:

Yes, we have ZILLIONS of photos of the mountains surrounding the lake here. We indeed had a lakeside site---although the lake was still frozen so just white instead of brilliant turquoise blue :-(

As a warning: do NOT, repeat NOT, try to stay at this lodge. The prices were atrocious, the owner had told us a number of things that were either untrue or not feasible about the campgrounds, NOTHING was free including wifi and showers(although implied that it would be), etc, etc. I beat myself up for quite awhile about my stupidity in believing what was implied and for wasting our family money. Sigh...

Anna and I spent a number of hours on my bed--reading/playing and looking out the window to see from moment to moment which mountains were visible or hidden from sight.

Here are some of my favorite photos of that view: