About the Region
Unuk Watershed
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The spectacular Unuk is small, but it packs a wallop. At 80 miles (130 km) long and draining some 1500 square miles (3885 km2), it is dwarved by its vast neighbour the Iskut-Stikine. But size doesn’t matter in the case of the Unuk. It beats out its larger northern cousin with the largest runs of king (Chinook) salmon in southern Southeast Alaska and all five species of wild Pacific salmon come home to its waters.
The rich eulachon (aka candlefish or ooligan) runs in the Unuk make it a preferred location for that fishery by both people and seals in the spring. It bristles with diversity ranging from Alpine Tundra to the intact coastal temperate rainforest that covers much of the Alaskan portion of the watershed. Wolf, lynx, grizzly and black bears, fisher, mountain goat, moose, and black-tail deer call it home. It is thought that rare peregrine falcons nest in the remote reaches of the Unuk. U.S. conservationists managed to protect the entire lower river within Misty Fjords National Monument. More recently, their Canadian peers secured the smaller Border Lake Provincial Park on the Canadian side.
Threats
The only industrial development thus far in the watershed is Barrick Gold’s Eskay Creek Mine, which operates in the headwaters of a tributary creek of the Unuk on the Canadian side. The access road to the mine extends only a short distance into the Unuk, but stares into the valley below where it could be extended if any of the many claims in the area moves into advanced exploration.
Booming metal prices suggest that pressures for extending a road into this amazing, compact watershed are inevitable. Timber values are significant enough that a mining road into the Unuk valley would invariably lead to industrial logging in the Unuk. The best thing for the Unuk would be deroading upon closure and clean-up of the Eskay Creek Mine, but BC’s “Roads to Resources” Policy stands in the way.