Words:
Cory Jones

Photos:
Cory Jones

Cory Jones

Big Salmon River: Yukon’s Most Beautiful Tributary

It begins with the long, quiet road away from Whitehorse – the tarmac that soon gives way to a dirt road, providing sensational views across the Yukon forests and mountains. Every mile brings fewer houses, fewer signs, fewer reminders of civilisation. After three and a half hours, the road drops towards a sweep of water framed by dark spruce. This is Quiet Lake – the head of the Big Salmon River – and the start of what many paddlers call the most beautiful tributary in the entire Yukon watershed.

Over the next two weeks, we would paddle from here to Carmacks, and then continue for another seven days down the Yukon River to the old gold rush town of Dawson – fourteen days and hundreds of miles in one of the wildest corners of North America.

Quiet beginnings
Quiet Lake lives up to its name. Even in late July, when much of the Yukon is at the height of summer, there’s a stillness here that seeps into you. The air is scented with the spruce forests, ravens calling overhead, and somewhere out in the bay, Great Northern Divers (Common Loon) echoing ghostlike calls.

That first afternoon, we eased the canoes off the gravel shore and paddled across seven kilometres of calm water to the lake’s outfall. The pace was unhurried – there’s something about starting an expedition with no real rush, no need to ‘make miles’ on day one. We camped near the old cabins that sit just a stone’s throw from the outlet, their weathered timbers hinting at a time when trappers and prospectors moved through here regularly. In the shallows beside camp, large grayling swam lazily over the gravel bed, oblivious to our arrival. These arctic grayling were plentiful in the gravel beds with their dorsal fins breaking the glassy surface.

Through the lakes
Day two took us through the chain of three lakes that feed the Big Salmon proper – first the short gravel-bed link into Sandy Lake, then another narrow, reed-lined channel into Big Salmon Lake. Each passage felt like paddling through a diorama of northern beauty: pale green sedges waving in the shallows, the musk of wet spruce, the sudden clatter of a merganser taking flight ahead of the canoe.

By the time we reached Big Salmon Lake, the wind had risen, pushing against the shore in white-tipped riffles. Luckily, it blew from behind, giving us a helping shove across the open water. Late in the afternoon, we rounded a headland and saw, at last, the true beginning of the Big Salmon River – a dark, clear flow sliding between spruce-clad banks. A First Nations cabin stood nearby, its high cache shed raised on stilts to keep food safe from bears.

First Logjams
The Big Salmon does not let you forget that this is real wilderness travel. Within hours of starting downstream, the river bent sharply, and we found ourselves face to face with a wall of timber – a logjam stretching bank to bank and nearly 100 metres downstream. There was no chance of paddling or lining through. We hauled the canoes up on the right bank, unloaded every barrel and bag, and began the first of what would become a familiar portage routine.

Portaging a fully loaded canoe is not something you do for fun. Bear barrels full of food, safety kits, personal bags – everything had to be carried along a rough path through the spruce. Then the empty canoes were dragged and lifted over the portage route, tied off with highwayman’s hitches for easier handling. It didn’t take long to repack and shove off again, but half an hour later, another logjam appeared. This one was shorter, but the mosquitoes were worse – a cloud of whining persistence We renamed the river the ‘Bug Salmon’ on the spot.

That evening, we camped in a stand of spruce along the bank. The smell of woodsmoke mingled with the tang of fresh-caught fish in the pan. It felt good to be back in the rhythm of river life – firelighting, cooking over open flames, and listening to the water slide by in the dusk.

A pattern to the days
By the third day, a weather rhythm had emerged, one that would stay with us almost to Dawson. Mornings began cool and cloudy, and the light filtered through a layer of thin grey. By mid-morning, the first sun would slip over the hills, warming the forest edge and burning off the mist. By noon, it was hot – high twenties Celsius – and cumulus clouds began to build over the hills. In the afternoon, the wind would shift, sometimes with a faint katabatic punch, blowing down-valley from the high ground. On some days, cumulonimbus towers bloomed and brought short bursts of rain and the rumble of distant thunder. By evening, the skies cleared again, and the temperature dropped quickly after the sun set around 22:00.

The Big Salmon itself widened day by day. The first miles were narrow, the water quick and playful, with rippled runs and occasional rocks easy to spot if you kept alert. We faced two more logjams — one short enough to line the canoe through after lightening the load, another requiring a brisk portage — but after that, the river was clear. Higher water might mean fewer portages, but it would also make lining and scouting trickier

Wildlife on the river
The first bear came on day three — a young black bear grazing on berries along the right bank. It raised its head, watched us for a few seconds, then melted into the forest. It wouldn’t be the last. By journey’s end, we had seen six black bears and one grizzly, not to mention the countless signs of their passing: footprint on sand and gravel banks, claw marks on aspen trunks, fresh scat.

The beavers were even more conspicuous. Lodges rose from the shallows like organic sculptures, and each morning and evening we heard their tail-slaps echo across the water. A family of otters watched us pass them from the banks as we rounded a bend. Overhead, pied kingfishers hovered and dived, while flotillas of mergansers shepherded their chicks across the current.

The confluence
After five days, the tributaries of the South Big Salmon and the North Big Salmon rivers joined the main river. The current slowed in places, the river now broad enough for long, lazy meanders between gravel bars. In other areas, there were long riffles and wave trains with huge rocks in the river from cliffside erosion. Eventually, we reached the fish weir — a metal structure that channels salmon into a sensor that counts them on their upstream migration.

Salmon runs here are a shadow of what they once were. The Chinook that return are smaller on average, a sign that fewer are surviving to older, larger ages. Fewer fish means less spawning success, and each year the numbers dip a little more.

Environmental note: Salmon in decline
The Big Salmon River is named for the Chinook salmon that once surged upstream each summer, completing a migration of more than 3,000 kilometres from the Pacific. Today, numbers are a fraction of their historical levels. Smaller average fish size means fewer eggs per female, reducing reproductive success.

At the metal fish weir near Big Salmon Village, every salmon must pass through a counting chute. Data here feeds into long-term monitoring, but also tells a sobering story: fewer fish each decade, threatened by warming ocean temperatures, changing river flows, bycatch in marine fisheries, and habitat loss along their route.

Paddlers are asked to pass through the centre of the channel to avoid damaging the weir – and to pause a moment to consider the fragile, ancient migration unfolding beneath the canoe.

At the confluence with the Yukon River, the landscape opens dramatically. The Big Salmon Village once stood here — a major First Nations settlement. We camped on a wide gravel bar, grateful for the sudden drop in mosquito numbers.

Down the Yukon to Carmacks
The Yukon River felt like a different world – broad, deep, and steady at an easy twelve kilometres per hour. We passed Little Salmon Village, still home to Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation families, who hold their annual gathering here each July. By the time we reached Carmacks – a week from Quiet Lake – we had settled into a rhythm: rise with the light, paddle until mid-afternoon, set camp, cook, watch the river until the long twilight faded.

Many paddlers end their trip at Carmacks, content with the Big Salmon leg. But we pressed on, with another seven days to Dawson.

Into the historic heart of the Yukon
Beyond Carmacks, the Yukon flows through deep forested valleys, past wooded camps where red squirrels scolded us with relentless chatter, letting us know exactly how unwelcome we were in their chosen glade.

We soon reached the famous Five Finger Rapids – four rock pillars splitting the river into narrow, fast-flowing channels. They have a fearsome reputation from the days of the gold rush, when heavily laden paddle steamers had to winch themselves upstream through the gap. For us, in high summer flow, the rapids were straightforward – a line down the left channel, the canoe pitching gently over standing waves. A few kilometres later came Rink Rapids, another easy read-and-run. In fact, the most boisterous waves we’d seen were back upstream just past the North Big Salmon confluence.

Fort Selkirk
Midway to Dawson, we stopped at Fort Selkirk, once a Hudson’s Bay Company trading post and later a key steamboat port. In its heyday, over 200 steamers plied this river, carrying miners, supplies, and dreams between Whitehorse and Dawson. The gold rush of 1898 transformed the region overnight – and just as quickly, the boom faded.

Today, Fort Selkirk is preserved as a historic site by the Selkirk First Nation and the Yukon government. Weathered buildings line the riverbank: the old schoolhouse, the Anglican mission, the trading store. Walking through in the evening light, it’s easy to imagine the clang of the steamer bell, the bustle of cargo being loaded, and the mingling of languages – Tagish, Tlingit, English, French – on the dock.

Bears and the Big River
One evening, sitting on the gravel shore, I watched what I thought was a drifting log. But it had ears. After a few minutes, it became clear it was a bear – brown, with a shoulder hump – a grizzly. It swam steadily across the Yukon, easily covering the 600 metres to our island. Another night, a black bear tried to nose into camp. We drove it off with shouts and clanging pans, and it swam away into the current. The next day, yet another black bear swam the river as if it were a casual stroll.

The run to Dawson
The final days brought a sense of the journey drawing to a close, though the miles still felt long. The Yukon here is huge; it’s currently deceptive – even with the flow helping, the scale can make progress feel slow. We camped on sandy beaches, on forested points, and once on a bare gravel spit under a sky that refused to darken.

Then, one afternoon, the bend opened, and Dawson City appeared – a cluster of false-fronted buildings in the gold rush style, the outlines of old paddle steamers pulled up on the shore. Here, the Klondike River meets the Yukon, and with it, the stories of 1898 flood back – tens of thousands of stampeders hauling their gear over the Chilkoot Pass, building boats to float downriver, and gambling their luck on a few ounces of gold.

Stepping ashore after two weeks on the water, I felt that same blend of relief, satisfaction, and quiet melancholy that comes at the end of any long river trip. The Big Salmon had given us everything – calm lakes, technical portages, wildlife encounters, history, and above all, the sense of being truly away from it all.

If you go:
For paddlers inspired to take on the Big Salmon River, Mike Rourke’s Big Salmon River Guide Book (https://riversnorthonline.com) is an invaluable resource, with maps, notes, and portage details. The classic trip is Quiet Lake to Carmacks (about seven days), but adding the Carmacks–Dawson leg doubles the time and takes you deeper into Yukon history. Be prepared for self-sufficiency – this is remote country, and once you leave the road at Quiet Lake, the only way out is downstream.

Big Salmon River trip planner

Quiet Lake to Dawson City – 14 days distance:

• Quiet Lake to Carmacks via Big Salmon River – approx. 320 km (7 days).
• Carmacks to Dawson City via Yukon River – approx. 410 km (7 days).
• Total: 730 km

Best season:

• Late June to mid-August for stable water levels, long daylight, and fewer early-summer floods.
• Mosquitoes peak in July, especially on the Big Salmon – headnets are essential.

Access:

• Launch at Quiet Lake (3.5 hour drive from Whitehorse via gravel roads).
• Shuttle or charter arranged in advance for vehicle relocation or pickup at Dawson.

Permits & regulations:

• No permit required for paddling, but respect First Nations lands and local guidelines.
• Follow fish weir signage near Big Salmon Village – keep to the centre channel.

Main hazards:

• Logjams: Four major jams between Big Salmon Lake and the Yukon confluence; all require portaging or lining.
• Strainers: Frequent along upper sections — scout blind corners.
• Rapids: Mostly easy read-and-run, with larger standing waves near the North Big Salmon confluence; Five Finger and Rink Rapids are straightforward at normal summer levels but require attention. Grade 2 overall.
• Wildlife: Black and grizzly bears are common – store food securely and carry bear spray.

Wildlife highlights:

• Arctic grayling, beaver, kingfishers, mergansers.
• Bears often swim across the river; maintain distance.
• Salmon (Chinook) migration in late summer.

Campsites:

• Gravel bars, forest clearings, and sandy beaches along the Yukon River.
• No formal sites – ‘Leave No Trace’ principles essential.

Maps & resources:

• Big Salmon River Guide Book by Mike Rourke – essential for navigation and portage details. (riversnorthonline.com)
• 1:250,000 topographic maps are recommended for the wider context.