'All the kids were super excited': Chinook salmon arrive at Whitehorse fish ladder

Chinook salmon have started arriving at the Whitehorse fish ladder. 

While there have only been a handful of fish spotted so far, it's enough to spark some enthusiasm. 

"All the kids were super excited and right up against the glass," says Elizabeth MacDonald, manager of Yukon Energy's Whitehorse Fish Ladder and Hatchery. 

MacDonald says an average of about 1,200 chinook pass the fish ladder each summer, after a long journey up the Yukon River from the Bering Sea. It's one of the longest upstream salmon migrations in the world. 

The fish are counted and identified as male or female, wild or from the hatchery.

Each year, the hatchery incubates the fertilized eggs of chinook salmon over the winter and releases them above the fish ladder in the spring.

Hatchery fish are meant to replace fish that are killed in the dam turbines or spillway. 

"It kind of results in a net increase of fish so it makes up for the ones that are lost," says MacDonald.

Fry released this year might return to spawn in 2022 and 2023, she says.

Chinook passing the fish ladder will head for spawning areas including the McClintock River. They will spend one to two years in fresh water before heading to the ocean.

After four to six years in the ocean, they will return upriver to spawn. 

The Yukon Salmon Sub-Committee, a public advisory body, is hoping 55,000 chinook actually make it to their spawning grounds in various areas of Yukon this summer.