Sign Post Forest is a collection of signs at Watson Lake, Yukon, Canada, and is one of the most famous of the landmarks along the Alaska Highway. It was started by a homesick GI in 1942. He was assigned light duty while recovering from an injury and erected the signpost for his hometown: Danville, Ill. 2835 miles. Visitors may add their own signs to the more than 100,000 already present.
In 1942, a simple sign post pointing out the distances to various points along the tote road being built was damaged by a bulldozer. Private Carl K. Lindley, serving with the 341st Engineers, was ordered to repair the sign, and decided to personalize the job by adding a sign pointing towards his home town, Danville, Illinois, and giving the distance to it. [1] Several other people added directions to their home towns, and the idea has been snowballing ever since. [2]
The Sign Post Forest takes up a couple of acres, with huge new panels being constantly added, snaking through the trees. There are street signs, welcome signs, signatures on dinner plates, and license plates from around the world.
In June 2012, the stage in the centre of the forest was the site of an impromptu performance of the play Two Women on a Precipice. The playwright Karin Fazio Littlefield was delayed in attending the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska, by mudslides on the Alaska Highway. Littlefield and her fellow actors performed the piece for travellers who were likewise stranded in Watson Lake by the mudslides.
Hyder is a census-designated place in Prince of Wales–Hyder Census Area, Alaska, United States. The population was 48 at the 2020 census, down from 87 in 2010. Hyder is accessible by road only from Stewart, British Columbia. It is popular with motorists wishing to visit Alaska without driving the length of the Alaska Highway. Hyder has no direct access to any Alaskan road. It is the southernmost community in the state that can be reached via car. Hyder is Alaska's easternmost town.
The Alaska Highway was constructed during World War II to connect the contiguous United States to Alaska across Canada. It begins at the junction with several Canadian highways in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, and runs to Delta Junction, Alaska, via Whitehorse, Yukon. When it was completed in 1942, it was about 2,700 kilometres (1,700 mi) long, but in 2012, it was only 2,232 km (1,387 mi). This is due to the realignments of the highway over the years, which has rerouted and straightened many sections. The highway opened to the public in 1948. Once legendary for being a rough, challenging drive, the highway is now paved over its entire length. Its component highways are British Columbia Highway 97, Yukon Highway 1, and Alaska Route 2.
The Kenai Peninsula is a large peninsula jutting from the coast of Southcentral Alaska. The name Kenai is derived from the word "Kenaitze" or "Kenaitze Indian Tribe", the name of the Native Athabascan Alaskan tribe, the Kahtnuht’ana Dena’ina, who historically inhabited the area. They called the Kenai Peninsula Yaghanen.
The Sawatch Range or Saguache Range is a high and extensive mountain range in central Colorado which includes eight of the twenty highest peaks in the Rocky Mountains, including Mount Elbert, at 14,440 feet (4,401 m) elevation, the highest peak in the Rockies.
The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile (53 km) trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, in the United States, to Bennett, British Columbia, in Canada. It was a major access route from the coast to Yukon goldfields in the late 1890s. The trail became obsolete in 1899 when a railway was built from Dyea's neighbor port Skagway along the parallel White Pass trail.
The Klondike Highway is a highway that runs from the Alaska Panhandle through the province of British Columbia and the territory of Yukon in Canada, linking the coastal town of Skagway, Alaska, to Dawson City, Yukon. Its route somewhat parallels the route used by prospectors in the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush.
Girdwood is a resort town within the southern extent of the Municipality of Anchorage in the U.S. state of Alaska. Located near the end of the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet, Girdwood lies in a valley in the southwestern Chugach Mountains, surrounded by seven glaciers feeding into a number of creeks, which either converge within the valley or empty directly into the arm. Girdwood is typically accessed by the Seward Highway, with the main line of the Alaska Railroad paralleling the highway. By road distance, most of the community lies within 35 to 40 miles of Downtown Anchorage. The 2019 American Community Survey estimates a population of 1,742 in the valley.
The Liard River of the North American boreal forest flows through Yukon, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories, Canada. Rising in the Saint Cyr Range of the Pelly Mountains in southeastern Yukon, it flows 1,115 km (693 mi) southeast through British Columbia, marking the northern end of the Rocky Mountains and then curving northeast back into Yukon and Northwest Territories, draining into the Mackenzie River at Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories. The river drains approximately 277,100 km2 (107,000 sq mi) of boreal forest and muskeg.
The Seward Highway is a highway in the U.S. state of Alaska that extends 125 miles (201 km) from Seward to Anchorage. It was completed in 1951 and runs through the scenic Kenai Peninsula, Chugach National Forest, Turnagain Arm, and Kenai Mountains. The Seward Highway is numbered Alaska Route 9 (AK-9) for the first 37 miles (60 km) from Seward to the Sterling Highway and AK-1 for the remaining distance to Anchorage. At the junction with the Sterling Highway, AK-1 turns west towards Sterling and Homer. About eight miles (13 km) of the Seward Highway leading into Anchorage is built to freeway standards. In Anchorage, the Seward Highway terminates at an intersection with 5th Avenue, which AK-1 is routed to, and which then leads to the Glenn Highway freeway.
Watson Lake is a town in Yukon, Canada, located at mile 635 on the Alaska Highway close to the British Columbia border. It has a population of 790 in 2016. The town is named for Frank Watson, an American-born trapper and prospector, who settled in the area at the end of the 19th century.
A control city is a city, locality, or other location posted on a series of traffic signs along a particular stretch of road indicating destinations on that route. Together with route numbers and cardinal directions, these focal points aid the motorist navigating along a highway system. Such cities appear on signs at junctions to indicate where the intersecting road goes and where the road ahead goes. They are also typically used on distance signs.
Chugach State Park covers 495,204 acres covering a hilly region immediately east of Anchorage, in south-central Alaska.
Upper Liard is a chiefly First Nation settlement immediately west of Watson Lake in Canada's Yukon. It is situated at historical mile 642 of the Alaska Highway. Most of the residents are citizens of the Liard River First Nation, who also prominently populate the Two Mile area just north of Watson Lake.
The Rocky Mountain Trench, also known as the Valley of a Thousand Peaks or simply the Trench, is a large valley on the western side of the northern part of North America's Rocky Mountains. The Trench is both visually and cartographically a striking physiographic feature extending approximately 1,600 km (1,000 mi) from Flathead Lake, Montana, to the Liard River, just south of the British Columbia–Yukon border near Watson Lake, Yukon. The trench bottom is 3–16 km (1.9–9.9 mi) wide and is 600–900 m (2,000–3,000 ft) above sea level. The general orientation of the Trench is an almost straight 150/330° geographic north vector and has become convenient as a visual guide for aviators heading north or south.
A bypass is a road or highway that avoids or "bypasses" a built-up area, town, or village, to let through traffic flow without interference from local traffic, to reduce congestion in the built-up area, and to improve road safety. A bypass specifically designated for trucks may be called a truck route.
Lower Post is an aboriginal community in northern British Columbia, Canada, located on Highway 97, the Alaska Highway, approximately 15 miles southeast of Watson Lake, Yukon. Its historical mile designation is Mile 620. It is located near the confluence of the Dease and Liard Rivers.
King's Highway 41, commonly referred to as Highway 41, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. The 159.6-kilometre (99.2 mi) highway travels in a predominantly north–south direction across eastern Ontario, from Highway 7 in Kaladar to Highway 148 in Pembroke. The majority of this distance crosses through a rugged forested region known as Mazinaw Country. However, the route enters the agricultural Ottawa Valley near Dacre. A significant portion of Highway 41 follows the historic Addington Colonization Road, built in 1854.
Watson is a town of 777 residents in the Rural Municipality of Lakeside No. 338, in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Watson is located on the intersection of Highway 5 and Highway 6, the Canam Highway. Watson is approximately the same distance from Saskatoon which is to the west, and Regina to the south, which gives rise to its town motto, "Industrial Crossroads of Saskatchewan".
Royalston Falls is a 50 foot (15 m) waterfall and granite gorge located in Royalston, Massachusetts along Falls Brook, a tributary of the Tully River which in turn is a tributary of the Millers River. The falls are part of a 217-acre (88 ha) open space preserve acquired in 1951 by the land conservation non-profit organization The Trustees of Reservations. The 22-mile (35 km) Tully Trail and the 235-mile (378 km) New England National Scenic Trail pass through the property.
The Portage Glacier Highway, or Portage Glacier Road, is a highway located in the U.S. state of Alaska. The highway is made up of a series of roads, bridges, and tunnels that connect the Portage Glacier area of the Chugach National Forest and the city of Whittier to the Seward Highway. Most of the highway travels through mainly rural areas just north of the Kenai Peninsula, with the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel passing under Maynard Mountain, part of the Chugach Mountain Range. Parts of the route were first constructed in the early 1900s, and the entire highway was completed on June 7, 2000, as part of the Whittier Access Project. The main portion of the highway traveling from the western terminus to the Begich, Boggs Visitor Center at Portage Lake is designated as National Forest Highway 35 by the United States Forest Service (USFS).
