Leaving Your Mark: The History of Watson Lake’s Signpost Forest

From one sign to eighty thousand

What began as one soldier’s gesture became a tradition. Travellers passing through Watson Lake — a key stop on the Alaska Highway near the BC–Yukon border — began nailing up their own signs: city limits markers, licence plates, dinner plates, and hand-lettered planks naming hometowns near and far. The collection now numbers in the tens of thousands and grows every summer.

Wandering the forest

Part of the charm is simply walking the rows, reading names from around the world and hunting for a sign from somewhere near your own home. It’s free, open at all hours, and genuinely moving in an odd way — a physical map of everyone who has ever passed this remote northern crossroads.

Leaving your mark

Many visitors bring a sign to add — a spare licence plate, a painted board with their name or town. If you forget, you can often pick up materials in Watson Lake to make one. Bring a marker, and the community spirit does the rest. Just add yours respectfully among the throng.

While you’re there

Watson Lake also has a small interpretive centre on the Alaska Highway’s construction and, on clear nights, is a fine dark-sky spot. It makes a natural overnight or long lunch stop on a highway road trip between the Yukon and points south or east.

Quirky, sprawling, and unexpectedly touching, the Signpost Forest is one of the North’s great roadside legends — and one of the few attractions where you get to leave a permanent piece of yourself behind.

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