Yukon Chinook salmon swim up to 2,000 miles without eating a bite
Chinook salmon entering the Yukon in early June face one of the longest runs on Earth, up to 2,000 miles upstream, living off stored fat the whole way. That is why their meat is so rich. Along this 3,190 km river, only four bridges carry vehicles across.
Rising in the glaciated Coast Mountains of British Columbia, the Yukon crosses the Canadian territory that took its name and then the whole of Alaska, reaching the Bering Sea through the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta after 3,190 km. It drains about 854,700 square kilometres, some 323,800 of them in Canada, and carries an average of roughly 6,400 to 7,000 cubic metres per second. Exactly where it begins is argued over: the US survey favours the Llewellyn Glacier at Atlin Lake, others name Lake Lindeman at the top of the Chilkoot Trail, and some point to the Teslin, which delivers more water at their junction. The upper river was once called the Lewes.
The word Yukon comes from a Gwich'in phrase for white water river, a nod to pale glacial runoff. In 1843 the Holikachuk told Russian traders the name meant big river, but that seems to have been a mix-up with the Yup'ik name Kuig-pak, borrowed through trade contacts. The river was a main artery of the 1896–1903 Klondike Gold Rush, and paddle-wheelers worked it until the Klondike Highway arrived in the 1950s. Crossings remain scarce: at Dawson City a summer car ferry gives way to an ice bridge in winter, and a 2004 plan for a permanent span stalled over cost.
Salmon define life downstream. Chinook, coho and chum return each year to streams in Alaska, Yukon and British Columbia, and an estimated 35 to 50% of Chinook are headed for Canada. Villages dry, smoke and freeze the catch for people and sled dogs, using set gillnets, drift nets, dip nets and fish wheels chosen to suit each stretch of current.
Runs have crashed repeatedly since the late 1980s. Commercial Chinook fisheries were declared disasters in 2008 and 2009, a 7.5-inch net mesh limit came in 2010, and in 2021 Alaska banned all Chinook and chum fishing, even for subsistence. Only 58,500 Chinook were counted in 2023. Suspected causes include ocean changes tied to climate, disease, river fishing methods and bycatch by Bering Sea pollock trawlers. A 2001 US–Canada agreement created a 12-member panel to manage the shared fish.
Source: Yukon River
