Can You Swim the Skeena?

KM 0: The Sacred Headwaters

This vast region in northern British Columbia is the birthplace of three iconic salmon watersheds: the Skeena, Stikine, and Nass Rivers. Local Tahltan people call the area Klabona, which loosely translates as “headwaters.”

The Sacred Headwaters is an area of cultural and ecological significance. But the region is also rich in mineral and energy resources, including coal and coalbed methane. Several industrial development projects were proposed for the area, such as Fortune Minerals’ open-pit Klappan Coal Mine and Royal Dutch Shell’s Klappan Coalbed Methane Project.

Between 2004 and 2009, Shell Canada proposed to develop thousands of wells to extract up to as much as 8.1 trillion cubic feet (230 km3) of coalbed methane gas.

These projects would have threatened the water supply and destroyed sacred cultural sites. Due to these threats and other community concerns, resource development in the Sacred Headwaters was halted. However, this victory was not without its challenges; a group of Tahltan elders and leaders were arrested for blocking the road leading to the proposed mine site. The arrests sparked a decades-long movement that eventually protected the area.

In 2019, The B.C. government and Tahltan Nation signed the historical Klappan land-use plan that advances reconciliation and embraces the Klappan Valley’s significant social, cultural, environmental, and economic values. 

Collective community efforts helped safeguard vital salmon habitats and ensure the area’s cultural heritage is preserved for future generations.

The Upper Skeena

This part of the Skeena Watershed provides an important refuge for wildlife, hosts critical salmon habitat, and is largely untouched- despite some forestry, mining, and energy interest in the area.

The vast wilderness of the Upper Skeena Watershed presents a unique opportunity for achieving innovative conservation outcomes through Indigenous-led Land Use Planning. Examples of Indigenous-led land use plans in the region use enhanced land management standards that protect biological and ecological diversity, climate, and culture and consider future generations. These plans operationalize reconciliation and provide a clear path forward for how, when, and where development can occur to both minimize impacts and conflict.

Given that it is more cost-effective to protect intact forests rather than rebuild what has been lost, the vast wilderness of the Upper Skeena also presents exciting opportunities for carbon offset projects. These projects can play a crucial role in securing long-term protection of the area, helping the climate, and offering sustainable non-timber economic opportunities for local communities.

KM 337: Babine Confluence

The Babine watershed is a world-renowned system, marked by its rich ecology and cultural importance to the Indigenous communities who call Babine home. The Babine hosts a globally significant steelhead run and the Skeena’s largest population of Sockeye salmon, making it a critical part of the fishing and tourism industries. The Babine system supports important populations of moose, mountain goats and grizzly bears. Development pressures within the Babine watershed are growing as forestry cutting permits are issued to multiple large-scale licensees, and a pipeline corridor is proposed north of the Babine River. Watersheds like the Babine play a crucial role in climate regulation, carbon sequestration, and water management. Protecting systems like the Babine helps mitigate the impacts of climate change and ensure water availability for future generations.

KM 440: Witset

The Wetzin’kwa (Bulkley-Morice) is home to the Skeena watershed’s largest chinook salmon population and hosts sockeye, coho and steelhead. Witset (Moricetown) Canyon is renowned for its dramatic landscape and an important traditional Wet’suwet’en selective dipnet fishing site. The Wet’suwet’en also uses the Witset Canyon site to collect information on salmon returns and health, supporting essential conservation efforts in response to the diminishing returns of salmon returning to their territory due to climate change and worsened by land-use activities such as logging, mining, and agriculture. However, further upstream from the Witset Canyon, there is hope for salmon. While climate warming has negatively affected previously productive salmon systems, melting glaciers in the Upper Wetzin’kwa may create new suitable salmon habitats in the future.

Skeena & Bulkely Confluence

The confluence of the Bulkley and Skeena Rivers, located near the ancient village of Gitanmaax and present-day Hazelton, has long been an important meeting place for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

For millennia, this area has served as a vital fishing site and transportation hub for the Gitxsan people. The Village of Hazelton, often referred to as “Old Town,” has maintained its character since its founding in 1866. It has historically served as the central navigation hub of the region, evolving from a point along ancient trails to a location facilitating travel by canoes, pack trains, and dog sleds. Eventually becoming a stop for paddle-wheelers from the Northwest Coast.

Today, this area is not only a cultural treasure but also essential for salmon conservation. It supports all five species of Pacific salmon as well as steelhead trout, both of which are crucial for the health and sustainability of our communities that depend on these two significant rivers.