7/23 Watson Lake to Fort St. John

This was one of the nicest parts of the trip. The roads were in very good shape, the scenery was incredible and we saw amazing wildlife. The AlCan runs in and out of Yukon Territory and British then dips due south through Muncho Lake Provincial Park, Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park and Stone Mountain Provincial Park. Muncho Lake PP is a place that we had never heard of but that we agreed was one of the most spectacular and beautiful places on the entire ride. Like most of the AlCan in these reaches between more populated Alaska and the southern ends of BC and Alberta, there was very little traffic. The AlCan runs down through the middle of Muncho Lake PP which is a deep north/south trending glaciated valley. Very steep and tall mountains on both sides with the emerald green waters of the lake nestled in the bottom. Liard River Hot Springs is in the middle of ML PP and is where we stopped to have breakfast. The Liard River Hot Springs Lodge was a very clean inn and was a great place to eat. Our waitress was a young woman who had taken the bus up the AlCan at the beginning of summer from Peterborough, Ontario looking for work. She found it here and decided to stay through the summer until the fall when she would return to college in Peterborough. She was a very bright woman who quipped with us about regularity when we all ordered Red River Porridge. She was definitely an out of the ordinary waitress as she wore hiking boots in the dining room. She claimed they provided great support for her having to be on her feet all day. Made good sense and she really looked the part in the rugged, wild surroundings. We didn't have time to try the hot springs. It was on this stretch that we saw Stone sheep (our second species of sheep) and our first bison both in large herds, small male groups and lone bulls. I have an admittedly romantic view of the old west and I also lament the passing of organisms that were once plentiful but now are much reduced or extirpated because of human actions. The three things that I lament the most in this category are the passenger pigeon, the American chestnut and the bison. I will never see the sky darkened by the passing of millions of passenger pigeons, nor will I see the American chestnut take its dominant place in the eastern forest., and I will most likely never see millions of bison migrating north or south on the Great Plains. The pigeon is totally gone. On occasion you can see a tree-sized chestnut. But here in northern British Columbia we saw 50 bison of both sexes and mixed ages grazing on the side of the road, roaming in and out of the woods. I pulled onto the shoulder and did not turn the bike off. I understand how people can be so enamoured of a wild animal, especially some romantic megafauna like bison that they lose all common sense and want to walk up to the animal and click pictures or touch it. I actually had to tell myself, OK don't get too close, don't turn off the bike, which way are you going to go if they start to move toward you. But, I did stop and I did click some amazing shots, and I did get to see two juvenile bulls play at butting heads, and very young calfs playing chase, and old bulls walking in a straight line as others parted before them. And I saw them disappear like ghosts into the forest. Further down the road we saw other herds, and lone bulls and bull groups of two or three. These are stunning creatures that you really can't appreciate fully until you get close and see how BIG they really are. Although these animals stayed on the shoulder grazing they left plenty of evidence that they freely roamed all over the highway at will. The Stone sheep also didn't seem to care much about traffic and often held up long lines as they stood in the road. The AlCan took a right angle turn to the east and went through Stone Mountain PP, also a stunning landscape. We ended our day in Fort St. John which is a rather good sized city with modern facilities. We were beginning to leave the truly isolated wild behind.