Weathered in Watson Lake

Day 5: Watson Lake, Yukon Territory

Last night was interesting. I didn't sleep all that well, my still green-to-the-north nerves were used to camping out, alone at times in the mountains of California frequented by black bears, but not alone in grizzly country. My only experience with the latter were a few nights the year prior near Yellowstone. I remember that shortly before that trip, a grizzly attacked and killed someone in their sleep just outside of Yellowstone park. There were several other fatal incidents last year and this, as well. Granted I wasn't alone -- the sleepy airport terminal was a half mile away, practically across the hall by Yukon standards, and if I stood up I could plainly see it, staffed by a radio operator/weather observer 24 hours a day. Not that they could hear or see me.

After I landed I set up camp, ate dinner, cleaned myself up, and walked over to the terminal to use their computer & free wifi. At about 11pm I sauntered back to my tent. There was still plenty of light to see without any sort of flashlight, although the skies were only partially clear with a broken layer of cloud slowly becoming more thick, marking the advance of the weather I was trying to beat to get here. I went to bed and was awoke first by the rising moon, then by the sounds of a distant wolf or two -- the latter a cool experience, not so frightening due to the distance -- but then again later by something a bit closer - walking around, maybe within 50 yards of me. After that it was difficult to sleep. What was it? "Hey Bear" I called out a couple of times. I kept a pretty clean camp, no food out, or dirty dishes, but wondered about those who came before me. Was something making its way to me to sniff something out. Raccoon? Wolf? Bear (black or brown)? I admonished myself for failing to even bring the bear spray into the tent with me.

After staying up a bit, not hearing anything, but being hyper aware of every minute sound, I rose, looked for anything around with a flashlight, went to the airplane, and pulled out and loaded my shotgun. Four 12-gauge slugs in the magazine, one in the chamber. Back in the tent, the shotgun beside my air mattress, I felt considerably more calm and was able to sleep. I have no false security about being able to successfully fend off or dispatch an animal that chooses to attack in the night -- but I at least had a chance, and that provided considerable comfort.

I realize that not everyone believes in firearms for this sort of defense, but I was glad to have one with me. Given the opportunity I'd have taken a large pistol for portability when hiking, but those are severely restricted in Canada. Absent that, a 12-gauge with magnum slugs was regarded as a solid defensive weapon in the north. I would be told later by other locals as I continued onward that this was a wise choice, and that most people did pack some sort of weapon in Alaska.

The weather worsened overnight as predicted with a few small rain showers and lowering ceiling. By the time I awoke it was late - after 8am - and a solid deck of overcast hovered around 2000' over the airport. I walked over to the terminal to check weather. Whitehorse had 1,500' broken, 2,000' overcast, 4 miles visibility, light rain. Teslin had more or less the same. What about going IFR? The airmass was moist, unstable, and above the stratus were many ACC clouds - altocumulus castellanus to over 20,000'. With minimum IFR altitudes well over 10,000' in the area that meant ice, and unless those were spread out to pick around them visually, flying IFR was a no-go in the Mooney, a fairly easy decision.

For continuing visually, I now had the luxury of the Alcan highway to follow, and to land on if need be, but this was uncomfortably low to me to go on, particularly with a low mountain pass at about 3,300' MSL (Watson Lake, Teslin, and Whitehorse are all just above 2,000' elevation). In other words, the ceiling was likely to be quite low there. I took my time -- I was groggy and the weather too low for me to want to try to fly.

I'd also checked the weather in southeast Alaska and knew that there was just no chance of making the Chilkoot pass between Whitehorse and Skagway to visit Don, a friend of a friend who had invited me to come and stay. This was my first-planned stop in Alaska, but I knew that making the trip in August I was going into wet season there. It would have been a lot better to be here a month prior. I fired off an email telling him I probably wouldn't make it today. By the time all that was done I'd burned an hour. 9:30AM. On my way out, a helicopter called in intending to land for fuel. I could eavesdrop on each radio call and the radio operator's transmissions clearly as they were in the large room next to the pilot's lounge. When the helicopter landed, I started back for camp and paused to ask for a pilot report.

"Nice machine."
"She's a quirky girl, but does OK.", the pilot replied, speaking of his Bell 212, a relatively large machine that took couple of minutes' time for the rotors to spin down to a stop after the fuel to its turbine was cut, and the pilot hopping out to prepare to fuel.
"I heard you coming from the west over the highway, how's the weather?"
"I started in Whitehorse, on the way to a place just past Fort Nelson. The ceiling was 500 feet over the worst of it.", came his reply.

Helicopters can land anywhere, I can't. I needed better. I walked back to the Mooney and my campsite, made breakfast. Back to the terminal to check weather, and a very nice super cub came in from the highway. The pilot, a man in his early 40s, had left Anchorage the day before and had spent the night in Whitehorse. He was delivering it, his father's "cream puff" airplane to his dad now located in Arizona. I pressed him a bit on the weather and it was evident to him that it was good VFR.

"Just how much ceiling do you want?" he asked. I don't regard myself as a timid pilot who runs away from a cloud in the sky. Believe me I've seen plenty of that type, and in many cases its a good thing for folks who fly very few hours per year, but I could tell that's what he was thinking of me.
"I was hoping for a couple thousand, as I'm not familiar and there's the pass..."

He was pleasant enough and it was evident he knew his stuff -- well dressed and spoken, and had "grown up" flying in Alaska. Hmm, the stuff up here is a bit different. I stuck to my desired minimums but also had to think about things a bit more. Unlike the trench, I really did have a pretty good place to land with the highway below. The fatal mistake would be pushing into something where the visibility was too low, or allowing myself to get suckered into a descent in some geography that would prevent a turnaround in a valley. I would come to find in flying the next day that, at least for the Alcan in that region, I did not need to be as conservative as I'd initially hoped to be, but I would still not have flown in the conditions these two pilots reported, without an prior knowledge of the route, terrain, and obstacles - particularly at the cruxes of each pass, where a hasty turnaround might need to be made.

Hauling a Cub on straight floats over to the lake adjacent the airport

I spent the rest of the day packing up my camp in case the weather improved, making calls via Skype, and chatting with the radio operator. Watson Lake has a Community Aerodrome Radio Station. This was a new concept to me. At such airports, a person staffs the airport 24/7 providing traffic advisories, taking an hourly weather observation, provide weather information (but not a full on briefing, just data) from pilots who walk up and request it, and keeps track of whose generally coming and going. So why is this necessary with three operations for the day (4 if I count the American turbine aircraft that did a practice instrument approach and went missed)? Apparently Watson Lake is the best IFR alternate to Whitehorse, Yukon's capital, with substantial airline traffic. A person, rather than automated sensor, must make a physical weather observation and fax it to Environment Canada hourly. A family in the area nearly has the business locked up, too, with a father and two of his sons working at Watson Lake and Teslin, the next airport to the west. The only one not in the family was the fellow working graveyard, 11pm-7am, whom I'd missed by oversleeping.

I took the chance to ask about wildlife, and whether the airport and its campground were completely fenced.
"Oh there are bears around all right, black and brown, but you shouldn't have to worry about them. There is a lone wolf I see on the airport from time to time". said Chris, one of the two sons who worked the afternoon shift.
"Ahh good, I heard some things not far away in the night.."
"Oh, that was probably that beaver that hangs around"

Great, so I was scared of a beaver.

Among other things I learned chatting with Chris and his father that small-time gold prospecting and mining claims were still continuing with success even now, still using the old style sleuce boxes to get the gold out of sediment in river beds and that the town of Watson Lake, which I'd decided to skip based on my quick aerial view during arrival the day before, was apparently nothing special (world-famous "signpost forest" notwithstanding!).

The weather stayed more-or-less the same through the day, and by 4pm I decided to throw in the towel on trying to make Whitehorse, or really any further progress. Not long afterward, another bush-capable airplane landed and set up camp in next to me. The gentleman had flown all day from Alaska, on his way home to the northwestern US. I inquired again about the weather, and although he was tired he assured me the Alcan from Whitehorse to Watson Lake was fine. I'd already made my decision to stay the night and stuck to it, but it was his other stories that got my attention...

"I couldn't make it through here, ran into a wall of cloud and had to turn around", he said, gesturing at Mentasta pass, a common flying route that the highway from Anchorage to the Canadian border follows after leaving the Copper River plateau, "So I backtracked and went up through here", he continued. "Made it over the rise into the next river drainage and followed it down. I wound up flying at about a hundred feet doing helicopter shit, I really didn't like that."

At least his airplane could land on a gravel bar if he had to...mine could, too, but it wouldn't get back out again.

Watson Lake's airport terminal has some interesting history. The aerodrome was part of the WW-II supply chain to get aircraft into Russia. There are many photos and displays on the walls documenting the region's role in the war effort. I later saw that it was an attraction mentioned in The Milepost, a guidebook for Alcan highway travelers that I managed to find at our local library and take with me for the trip. The terminal itself is interesting, with all the fixings of a small airport that has airline service, something that had vanished many years ago. 

Campground gazebo amenities

I never did try to make it to town. From what I'd seen, and was told, about the only attraction was the signpost forest. A cab ride, or anything else, were obscenely expensive. I had the fold-up bike but it was a good distance for the small machine. Besides, I had plenty of food, some fresh in my cooler, a warm terminal open 24 hours, and other surprising amenities right there. Several hours of chatting, dinner, and wifi later, I went to sleep, under the Watson Lake gazebo for the second time, this evening sleeping a bit better than the last.