Heading back

With a section of the road between Watson Lake and Whitehorse being washed out by a land slide, we decided to make Watson Lake our final destination on this trip across the Yukon Highway.  With more time,  and money, I would have made the trip more slowly to allow for some exploring along the way. I would recommend going the full distance to Whitehorse, and beyond to anyone planning the trip.  I hear that Dawson is pretty amazing too, complete with swinging saloon doors and Can-can girls.  Ah, maybe another time...hears to dreaming anyway.


I've decided to make my return trip portion of this blog, mostly about the animals, with a few scenery pictures tucked in the mix.

Although I've gotten accustomed to seeing buffalo along the road way, there are a few other animals that are still quite alien to me.  First and foremost are the mountain sheep.  If you are like me, you don't know the difference between the different types, so here's a little cheat sheet from one of the signposts along the way.

I was relieved to read this sign because I had been rather concerned that the sheep were eating gravel...and I was a tad worried about their digestive systems.  

So the sheep above are male stone sheep.  They can look pretty scruffy when they are shedding their winter coats as you can see from these pictures.

Have you ever wondered why they use goats as a symbol of the devil...I'm thinking it's all in the eyes...

Of course baby pictures are always adorable, and baby sheep are no exception.

The females have short pointing horns.

We have moose in Ontario, where I'm from originally, but they tend to be more to the north, and are a bit shy, running off before you can get a good picture.  Apparently that holds true in the Northern BC and the Yukon too.  Although we saw a few, this is the best I could manage for a picture.

One of my favorite animals to see in the wild, was caribou; not the large herds you hear about (that would have been really cool), but at least I saw a couple.  Again, they were pretty skittish and ran off before I could get a good picture.  Here are the best of the ones I got.

I was really hoping to see a grizzly bear since they had signs posted about sightings close to Liard Hot Springs, but the brown coloured black bear,  from my previous post, was the closest I got.

and of course lots of "regular" coloured black bears.

The bonus of having to retrace our trip to get home was that we passed by Muncho Lake and the beautiful rivers I mentioned before.  Here are a few other shots from that area.  I love the colour so much!

Once back in Fort Nelson, we could have taken the other Highway back to Fort Liard and Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories, but since we there had been a lot of rain, it would have been a rough ride.  From the NWT border the road is gravel (aka Clay) for a good portion, which makes for a slippery, slimmy adventure.  We opted for the highway back down to Fort St. John then cross country to Grimshaw.  The cross country trip was quite pretty actually but there weren't any opportunities for photos along the way.

Strangely enough, as we got close to Pink Mountain again, we ended up driving right into the clouds.  I actually mean into them...not under them. Strange sensation.

Finally back at Hay River, we were chased by threatening clouds all the way back to Fort Smith.

 Great trip, but I would have loved to have gone further...right into Alaska. What a beautiful part of the country.  If you can make the trip, DO IT, you won't be sorry!