If you are heading up the Alaska Highway, this is one of those stops that looks small on the map and then swallows an hour of your day in the best way.
The Sign Post Forest sits right in Watson Lake, Yukon, at the junction of the Alaska Highway and the Robert Campbell Highway. What started as one homesick soldier’s extra sign is now a whole grove of posts covered in license plates, street signs, handmade boards, and messages from just about everywhere.
In 1942, while the Alaska Highway was being punched through, U.S. Army Private Carl K. Lindley of Company D, 341st Engineers was laid up in Watson Lake after an injury. His commanding officer asked him to repair the camp mileage post. Lindley added his own hometown: Danville, Illinois. Other soldiers followed. Travelers never stopped. Today there are tens of thousands of signs — some counts put it well over 80,000 — and the town keeps adding posts as they fill up.
I stood under that wooden “WATSON LAKE YUKON — THE WORLD FAMOUS SIGN POST FOREST” arch and just looked up. You can spend a long time reading plates from Florida, Germany, Kentucky, Alaska, little towns you have never heard of. It is part roadside attraction, part guest book for the whole north.
Last time through we were on the go-go-go Alaska run. Watson Lake and Dawson City were two of my favourite stretches of that trip, and we still did not give them enough time. I want to get back. I want a slower morning here, time to walk the rows properly, maybe nail up a sign of our own, then keep going north toward Dawson without watching the clock the whole way.
If you stop:
- It is free and right in town. Easy pull-off for trucks and RVs.
- Bring a sign if you have one, or make something at the Visitor Information Centre next door.
- The Alaska Highway Interpretive Centre is close if you want the construction story behind the first post.
- Give it more than ten minutes. The forest only works if you wander.
A very short clip from this stop is below. Blogger’s upload limit is tight these days, so it is just a taste. The longer look will live on the KassDays YouTube channel.
Watson Lake is not a place you tick off. It is a place that keeps collecting people. Next time I want to be one of the ones who stayed long enough to read more than the first row of signs.
See you on the road.
Kass
KassDays
