William Twardek, a Carleton University PhD student who's been studying Yukon River chinook salmon, says his four-year research project has found that some fish simply can't make it past the fish ladder to reach their spawning grounds.

The Yukon First Nations Education Directorate gave away 30,000 pounds of free fish as part of its nutritional program in Whitehorse this week. People were particularly happy to receive the donation because salmon are well below the historical average this year.

About 189,000 fall chum had entered the Yukon River as of Sept. 7. At least 300,000 fish must enter the river before either Alaska or Yukon fishers can begin harvesting.

The Yukon Salmon Sub-Committee is recommending the complete cessation of fishing for Chinook salmon this year on the Yukon River.

The number of chinook salmon that reached the Whitehorse fish ladder this year hit a 40-year low, and it's not clear why. Just 282 chinook passed through the fish ladder this year, compared to 690 last year. "We did see some large pre-spawn mortality die-offs in a tributary of the Yukon River — the Koyukuk in Alaska. This was for summer chum, and not chinook — but we expect that that higher water temperature also affected the chinook migrating through."