Mandated to do so as a result of the Pacific Salmon Treaty of 1985, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans began a program through which it intended to stop the decline in escapements to naturally-spawning chinook stocks and attain escapement goals in selected lower Strait of Georgia (Cowichan, Nanaimo, Squamish) and upper Strait of Georgia (Klinaklini, Kakweiken, Nimpkish, Wakeman, and Kingcome) indicator stocks.

The Klinaklini River, identified as an indicator stock, received special attention due to its potential for large escapments of chinook and coho salmon. A temporary hatchery was established on the system shortly after the treaty was ratified, however for various reasons DFO dismantled the facility the following year.

Renewed interest by DFO in 1997 resulted in a further and ongoing stock assessment study on the Klinaklini River system. These reports present the results of the four years of this study with objectives including:

  1. Continued evaluation of the suitability of using a fishwheel to index the abundance and timing of chinook, coho, chum, pink and sockeye returns on the Klinaklini system
  2. Estimation of the total escapement of chinook and coho to the river system
  3. Collection of biological data for all salmonids, and
  4. Recording environmental information.

The only information regarding possible fish distribution in the East Klinaklini was from the following paper:
Nagtegaal, D.A., E.W. Carter, and D.C. Key. 1998. Results of the chinook assessment study conducted on the Klinaklini River during 1997. Can. Manuscr.Rep.Fish.Aquat.Sci. 2452: 59p
On page 10 it has the following paragraph:
“There were some indications that chinook may migrate through the East Klinaklini canyon and into the upper river but the tracking receiver could not decipher the tag number. The tracking receiver scans all tag frequencies and deciphers tag codes within each frequency. When the signal cannot be deciphered, due to either noise interference or multiple signal overlap, a signal code of “255″ is recorded. Towards the end of the study the remote tracking site on the East Klinaklini recorded several ‘255″ codes. Unfortunately we were unable to determine what the cause of the ‘255′ signals and whether they represented a tagged fish or simply noise interference.”

The full length versions of these reports are available at:

Canadian Manuscript Report of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Library