July 31, 2024 - Alaska Flight
Day 3D - Muncho Lake to Watson Lake, Yukon
A picture of the Liard River Suspension Bridge from Wikipedia.
The mountains have receded.
Continuing on.
A pullover on the Alcan Highway.
Barney Lake, north of the highway.
Somewhere around here I cross from British Columbia into the Yukon.
The Liard River and Highway merge again. A place called Lower Post is at right center.
There is Watson Lake Airport. I had checked in with the Watson Lake Radio and received weather and traffic advisories.
Safe on deck at Watson Lake Airport.
At the time, I didn't know what the avgas cost in terms of U.S. dollars per gallon, since the pump is Canadian dollars and litres. Frankly, I really didn't care what it cost. I was just happy to be able to get it. I did have a little scare. The card reader wouldn't accept my Visa card. But, thankfully, it accepted my MasterCard. It's a very good idea to carry multiple credit cards on a long cross-country.
I'm guessing this control tower and building were built during World War II as was the entire airport and base. Construction began in 1941. Watson Lake Airport was a key component of the Northwest Staging Route, developed and used by the US military to deliver Lend-Lease warplanes to the Soviet Union during World War II.
The U.S. turned the airport over to Canada in 1946 and various Canadian airlines used the airport over the years but it gradually dried up. The airport currently has no regularly scheduled flights.
The door on the left leads to a very nice passenger terminal with lots of pictures and information placards on the wall.
On the right side of the building is the Community Aerodrome Radio Station (CARS). It is manned 24x7. This is the person I talked to when communicating with Watson Lake Radio. It is very nice to have someone here that you could go to for help if needed, because otherwise the airport is deserted.
A fascinating map of what was called the Alaska-Siberian route, although it seems to be that a large portion was through Canada. The Alcan highway follows this route too: Dawson Creek (between Grand Prairie and Fort St. John), Fort St. John, Fort Nelson, Watson Lake, Whitehorse, Northway, Fairbanks.
From a placard in the terminal: "Given the long distances, the sub-zero temperatures, and the primitive living and working conditions for pilots and ground crews, the losses [of lend-lease planes and pilots/crews] was relatively small. Of 8,058 Lend-Lease aircraft that were delivered from American factories, 74 were lost in the U.S. 58 went down in Canada and Alaska. There were 48 fatal crashes in Siberia. Lend-lease pilots had to cope with fog; sleet or freezing rain, sudden snow squalls and frozen clouds that coated aircraft wings with ice in seconds. ... Many lend-lease pilots died when their planes went down and crashed into the frozen, uninhabited, and unforgiving wilderness."
A fixer-upper.
Although only myself and a helicopter used the airport while I was here, there are a couple of airworthy planes here at Watson Lake.
This is the "gazebo" area which can be a camping area.
It doesn't look like this area gets much use. All the steel fireplaces are overgrown except for one.
This gravel runway is no longer in use.
My lodging for the night. Watson Lake town is something like five miles away and a cab ride one way is $50 or thereabouts. It did get a little cool at night.
