Good Vibes

keep the animal vibes coming.  When we left Watson Lake the animal count was pretty slim.  So I asked for good vibes to be sent my way.  Thank you and please keep them coming.  We have seen wood bison, a caribou, a swan family, elk, deer, and a couple of playful bears.

What is a stop at Watson Lake without a picture of the sign post forest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_Post_Forest  It has gotten so big the visitors center had to move out of their building. These pictures are just the outskirts of the forest, there are over 80,000 signs now.  While I was taken the pictures of the sign post forest Roy was taking pictures of ravens eating lunch. I am so glad we have seen a few more animals now, I am not a big ravens fan (football team either).

Heading down the road just a little ways outside of Watson Lake we get our first look at some wildlife of course on the other side of the road in the ditch but you could still see them.  Yes, two cubs still getting along with each other.  Yes I know it looks like they are biting each other but they are just playing :).  It was cool seeing two of the same type of animal at the same time.  A little further down the road we were treated to about sixty wood bison on the road, the side of the road, and a few playing in the dust bowl.   I know there even seemed to be some romance possibly in the dust hole.  Judge for yourself I know there was sniffing.  I was enjoying stopping and watching then moving on just to see some more bison about ten miles down the road.  Here we had some scratching, and standing in the middle of the road.  The cutest thing was we had pulled over near the shoulder of the road and a calf who was just growing some horns was trying to sound tough by snorting and looking at us like hey you scared you better be because I’m tough.  Check the look out on his face. I was amazed at how many calves were spread between the two groups of animals.  I think in all the times we’ve seen bison or buffalos that between the two groups it is the largest number.

We stopped at the 60th parallel north https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/60th_parallel_north . We will be crossing it again when we leave the Northwest Territories after Yellowknife.  We did not see anymore animals until we got to Toad River Lodge where we set up camp in site 14 which has an awesome view of the lake. Here I was treated to a family of swans.  Even though the cygnets are grey these guys were still regel.  The male swan, called the cob, helps the female, known as a pen, to look after their babies, called cygnets until they are a year old. The young don’t spend more than one day in the nest once they hatch.

After we left Toad River we encountered a caribou who thought he owned the road.  We slow down to get beside him because he is on the side of the road, well he thinks it’s a game.  He decided to walk in front of the car then zig zag slowly kinda like you need to drive slow you want to see me.  I will post the video of this soon for know here’s the picture. Mike who is the other half of Cindy a couple from Fort Collins CO we met at Toad River had to go to Fort Nelson and he told a very similar story.  So I think it might have been the same one.  Speaking of Cindy and Mike The first night we were in Toad River I start talking to the couple at the next table and ask where they are from and which way they are headed.  I could tell that this was their first trip to Alaska and they were headed home.  You get the I’m hooked look in the eyes.  They were stuck in Toad for a few days because they had an issue with the steering on the truck, so explains why Mike had to go to town.  The cool thing was is there are still people out there ready to lend a hand so they were able to get it fixed.  I enjoyed hearing about what they liked about Alaska and how they had to see everything.  I hope they return and stay longer in spots they enjoyed.  I also got the opportunity to show Cindy some of my pictures including the mega moose from a couple of years ago. (They said they haven’t seen any large moose.)  Speaking of moose that is one animal we have yet to see this trip.  We saw elk and a few deer today but were not able to get a picture.  I am hoping that we do see one so keep sending your good animal vibes.