Sign Post Forest
A homesick US Army private repainting a directional post at Watson Lake in 1942 added an arrow pointing to Danville, Illinois. There are now somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000 signs on the site, roughly 2,000 arrive every year, and nobody curates any of it.
Field Guide Entry
Carl K. Lindley was with Company D of the 341st Engineers, building the Alaska Highway through the Yukon in 1942. He was injured, sent to the aid station at Watson Lake, and put on light duty repainting a directional signpost. He added a board pointing to Danville, Illinois, where he was from.
Other soldiers added their own. The habit outlasted the war and the road crews and has never stopped.
No curator
There is no selection process and no accession record. Whatever someone brings is what goes up: municipal street blades lifted from home towns, license plates, painted plywood, dinner plates, hubcaps, and a great many hand lettered family names with dates. Nothing is taken down except when a post fails, and the town puts in new posts as the old ones fill.
Counts vary because nobody can count them properly. Published figures run from 75,000 to over 100,000, growing by roughly 2,000 a year. The oldest boards have weathered to blank gray wood, which is its own kind of exhibit.
On the register
The Yukon Register of Historic Places designated the site on August 30, 2013, giving a primary construction period of 1940 to 1965 and describing it as an evolving cultural landscape. It is an unusual thing for a heritage register to protect: a place whose entire significance depends on the public continuing to alter it.
Lindley came back in 1992, for the highway's 50th anniversary, and put up a new sign for Danville.
Visiting Information
Free, outdoors, and open at any hour of the year. The Watson Lake Visitor Information Centre next to it sells blanks, paint, and markers in season for anyone who arrived without a sign, and holds the Alaska Highway interpretive material.
Most people are here because they are driving the Alaska Highway, and Watson Lake is the first Yukon town northbound. Bringing a sign from home is the usual approach, and a cordless drill and a handful of screws are worth having in the vehicle, since nothing is provided at the posts.
The paths between the posts are gravel and are not cleared in winter, so the site stays open but the walking is harder from November through March. Allow 30 minutes to an hour, longer if you came to find a specific place name.
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