occasional justus: Excellent roadtrip...Part 5...heading south

After our last visit to Whitehorse three Augusts ago, we believe it rains quite a lot there. Not so much this time, however. At least, not until we were leaving next morning.
We did manage to replenish our supplies, not at the Superstore, which was having a "no sales tax" special and was consequently attended by the entire population of southern Yukon; not at the SuperValu, which turned out to have closed its doors, leaving only a sign; but at the Extra Foods, where we met Peter, whose place (well, his and Johanna's; they're the only people we know in Whitehorse) we'd just left. He was doing the same thing. The liquor store, the next stop, turned out to be very competent and very expensive. (Maybe we should stop complaining about BC prices, although the private store we found in Fort St John was equally pricey, and had far less selection.)
A little later, while I was blasting the van's truly magnificent mud collection, accumulated on both the Taylor and Dempster highways, at a carwash, Sandy, as is her wont, engaged the attendant in conversation. Turns out he's not local first nations; turns out he's from the Philippines, a nurse, supervising the carwash seven days a week while he gets his papers and qualifications sorted out.
There must be a message in there somewhere.
Next day was the Alaska Highway to Watson Lake:

Jake's Corner...

...Teslin...

...near Swift River: the continental divide, separating the water that flows west via the Yukon from water that ultimately flows north via the Mackenzie.

We had decided against the Stewart-Cassiar Highway, because last time we traveled that way we saw very little of the scenery. It rained pretty-much constantly; the forecast threatened a repeat. Paul and Shirley hadn't done either before, so we didn't need to chance it improving. We heard later, when we picked up the CBC in Fort Nelson, that we'd made the right choice, as the Stewart-Cassiar had closed because of an accident near Dease Lake for a day, just about the time we would have been there.

So we followed the Liard River...

...took in the Liard Hotsprings...

...and Muncho Lake...

...plus got lucky enough to see caribou, strolling along the road between Summit Lake and Tetsa River.

The road between Fort Nelson and Fort St John is becoming a bit familiar, but it was raining, so there wasn't much to see anyway.

That said, it was a little disconcerting to see signs on many of the side-roads advising people not to stop, due to the possibility of poisonous hydrogen sulphide gas escapes.