Watson Lake, Yukon--Keep on Truckin' (Right Through)
Written: May 06 '00 (Updated Aug 21 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Alaska Highway Visitor Center, varied winter activities
Cons: Crummy and limited lodging, bad food, terrible movie, expensive, boring tourist attractions
The Bottom Line: Watson Lake is an unfortunate stop on the Alaska Highway
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| ericgoldman's Full Review: Yukon |
In summer 1997, my wife and I drove from San Francisco to Anchorage, AK on a 3 week vacation. Along the way, we spent a day and night in Watson Lake, Yukon. I had always fantasized about the Yukon as a wild and perhaps idyllic place, so I was ecstatic to finally make it there. Unfortunately, Watson Lake was my least-favorite place in the Yukon and one of my least-favorite places on our entire 5,000 mile trip.
To understand why, it’s crucial to understand Watson Lake’s geography. Watson Lake is a town in southern Yukon along the Alaska Highway with about 1,500 people, which makes it one of the larger towns in the Yukon. Watson Lake is approximately 8 hours away by car from Whitehorse on the west and Fort Nelson, BC on the east, with both Whitehorse and Fort Nelson representing the nearest towns with a full complement of tourist services. In other words, it’s a 16 hour drive between Whitehorse and Fort Nelson, and there is a single town—Watson Lake--in between providing tourist services.
Given this geographic situation, it’s inevitable that pretty much everyone driving the Alaska Highway will try to stay overnight in Watson Lake unless they plan ahead and find alternative lodging among the sparse options along this stretch of the highway. As a result:
* During the summer, all of the hotels in Watson Lake are likely to fill up every night. This is especially true because probably every bus driving the highway stops here. So unless you plan ahead, lodging is going to be a real problem. Unfortunately, we didn’t plan ahead, and as a result, we had a very small number of lodging options.
* Because everything is going to sell out, Watson Lake is very expensive. We ended up paying about $75 for one night in a truly awful room—it was run-down, unclean, and noisy. This was the most we paid for lodging on the entire trip, and it was the worst room.
Most of the other tourist services were equally distressing:
* Food was a real problem. There are probably a half-dozen restaurants in Watson Lake, so there was surprising choice, but the choices were horrendous for vegetarians! We ended up risking the town’s Chinese food restaurant, and we rolled snake eyes. It was as bad as you’d expect—greasy and gross. Plus, it was pretty expensive, as were all restaurants in town.
* The town’s major tourist attraction is the “Sign Post Forest,” where over 40,000 city signs and car license plates are mounted on wood sticks. Um, there’s no polite way to say this, so let me just say it—this forest was BORING. It’s worth 5 minutes, tops.
* We were pretty excited because the Northern Lights Space and Science Centre was in town and offered a multimedia “movie” about the northern lights using sophisticated laser technology. I thought to myself—how nice, I’ll take my wife out to a lovely dinner and a movie in the Yukon (and she’ll be so happy, she’ll stop cursing me for dragging her 2,500 miles away from home to the middle of nowhere). I already mentioned how the dinner went, but I thought we could salvage the evening with the movie. Wrong!!! First, the movie wasn’t cheap—about $8 per person for 30 minutes. Second, almost half of the movie was spent promoting the tourist attractions of Watson Lake, some unscheduled tourism 'crap' that went on way too long. Finally, there was 15 minutes about the northern lights, and the story, characters and overall presentation was just terrible. It was a waste of extremely sophisticated laser technology. The movie was so bad that I would have thought less of Watson Lake on the basis of the movie alone. But we both had upset stomachs and had to return back to our crummy hotel room, making this moment probably the nadir of the trip.
I did enjoy the Alaska Highway Visitor Reception Center, which had some fascinating history about the construction of the Alaska Highway. And to be fair, Watson Lake has a surprising number of activities, especially winter activities, for a town of its size and remoteness. But overall, it was a lousy tourist experience for vegetarians visiting in the summer without hotel reservations, especially compared to some other equally small and remote places along our route.
So while you’re going to need to stop in Watson Lake to gas up and maybe get some supplies, my advice is to make your stay as short as possible and spend more time elsewhere, like Whitehorse. In particular, I advise you to plan ahead and make alternative arrangements for lodging at a campground or hotel somewhere else in the Fort Nelson-to-Whitehorse stretch.
For more information, check out http://www.watsonlake.net/.
June 26, 2000 update: I've noticed that some users are misinterpreting my critical travel reviews as disparaging the residents of the locale. I write my travel opinions to explain why I liked and didn't like a destination AS A TOURIST. I do not judge why people choose where to live or assess their personal worth based on those choices. I hope you find the review helpful in determining whether this destination is a good tourist destination for you.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
ericgoldman
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Member: Eric Goldman
Location: Santa Clara, CA
Reviews written: 35
Trusted by: 32 members
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