Gold Creek Chum Salmon Run

Southeast Alaska is home to five salmon species, including chum, otherwise known as keta or dog salmon. Chum are fun to catch and smoke up well. They are also great for canning.

One of Juneau’s little mysteries, though, is why chum continue to swim to Gold Creek during spawning season. Since 1934, various agencies have constructed and maintained a long concrete flume to direct the creek straight through the residential “Flats” neighborhood to Gastineau Channel, generally following the creek’s natural path, as a flood mitigation measure. Construction displaced the natural stream bed the fish used for spawning, replacing the bed with a straight chute of concrete that ends near the intersection of Glacier Avenue and Egan Drive.

However, despite the destruction of their habitat, chum continue to swim into Gold Creek from Gastineau Channel every year, usually around mid-July. For nearly 90 years, thousands of fish have shown up and attempted to swim upstream from the rocky outflow along the concrete flume. These fish are bred and raised to smolts at the nearby Douglas Island Pink & Chum Hathery (DIPAC). It’s a bittersweet sight: the natural determination of fish trying to swim upstream even though they haven’t had a spawning creek for decades and were placed to acclimate miles away. If salmon know their home stream, how does this happen?

Our friend Katie Harms, Executive Director at DIPAC/Macaulay Salmon Hatchery, explains: chums produced at the hatchery are acclimated to fresh stream water at various locations around the Juneau area. It’s likely that the adults, upon their return from the ocean, believe they are “close enough” to their home stream. They likely don’t successfully spawn in Gold Creek, but Harms notes that some individuals are able to spawn in the intertidal zone close to the creek’s mouth.

Weird, huh? To learn more about salmon life cycles in Alaska, check out the Alaska Department of Fish & Game’s Salmon Fishing Guide! To learn more about Alaska’s fisheries management, visit their website. And don’t forget to visit DIPAC/Macaulay Salmon Hatchery when you’re in Juneau – touch tanks with local sea creatures, a great aquarium, and lots to see.