Down time at the Hot Springs; Bison not Buffalo

We left our boon dock location this morning and drove 50 miles to Liard Hot Springs. This is a provincial park and quite popular. The main hot springs are half a mile from the parking lot via a boardwalk, and have restrooms and changing rooms at the pools. If you go here, consider walking 5 minutes beyond the main pool to the Beta Pool.

This pool is deeper and cooler than the lower springs, but when we walked there after getting out of the main pool, no one else was there! The lower pools were quite warm depending on where you sat, up to 110 degrees, but with other spots that were closer to bath temperature.

While there were perhaps 25 people in the pool, it’s large enough that it didn’t seem crowded and we weren’t forced to converse with other people as we relaxed. Worth the stop.

After the hot springs we traveled mostly east, just south of the Yukon Territory/British Columbia border to Fort Nelson, BC where we’re spending the night. There has been a clear change in the landscape since we left Whitehorse. We don’t know the terminology, but the northern spruce forests and permafrost landscape has changed to pine and birch forests and a more Rocky Mountain/Cascades environment. One other change we noticed: Bob got up briefly about 2am last night and . . . . drum roll . . . . it was ALMOST DARK!

As we drove along today, another change occurred. The signs which before always warned to be on the lookout for moose, have changed to be on the lookout for buffalo, and we saw LOTS!!

One editorial comment: Despite the official Government of Canada signs warning us to be on the lookout for buffalo, a Google search convinces us we were actually seeing bison. We’ll let you do your own research if you want to find out the difference. And one final note about wildlife and highways living in close proximity: at several points along the Alaska Highway we’ve seen signs announcing “245 moose-vehicle collisions so far this winter – slow down!” Today we noticed a truck off in the ditch, trees and bushes on the south side of the highway (no person inside) and a dead bison on the adjacent north side. We didn’t take photographs, but took this to be a more graphic warning of the consequences if one fails to take seriously the warnings to keep alert for wildlife near the highway.