Laisser sa trace : l’histoire de la Signpost Forest de Watson Lake
Comment un soldat nostalgique a lancé en 1942 une forêt de plus de 80 000 panneaux.
In 1942, a homesick U.S. Army soldier named Carl Lindley was repairing signs along the newly built Alaska Highway at Watson Lake. Missing home, he added a hand-painted sign pointing toward his hometown of Danville, Illinois. Others followed his lead — and that single post has since grown into the world-famous Signpost Forest, a sprawling maze of more than 80,000 signs from every corner of the planet. Here’s the story and how to add your own.
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.