This juvenile king salmon was the first ever captured above the mining area and provides us with new information of the importance of this habitat. The Jim River crosses the Dalton Highway about 30 miles south of Coldfoot. Besides being an important regional producer of chum and king salmon, the Jim River offers outstanding grayling fishing opportunities. Our goal is to ensure an adequate supply of water is available to sustain reproducing salmon. This will be accomplished by determining an optimum amount of streamflow and then submitting a water rights application to the State of Alaska.
Stream flow is a measure of how much water passes by a given point in a river at a given time.
Our crews determine this flow by taking a series of velocity and depth measurements at a predetermined point on the river. Since the Jim River rises and falls in response to annual and longer term climatic changes, we need to measure changes in flow over a period of time in order to characterize its flow.