News from Koyukuk River, Alaska
A rain-fed surge down the Koyukuk could wash out the Dalton Highway — the lone road feeding the North Slope oil fields — the same way 2015's flooding shut it for 28 days.

Federal and state managers opened Yukon District 4 and Koyukuk River to summer chum subsistence harvest with selective gear only, banning gillnets to protect Chinook salmon through late July.

Alaska Board of Game is proposing hunting and trapping restrictions in Game Management Units 23 and 24 if the 211-mile Ambler Road is built across the Brooks Range. Public hearings are July 22-23 in Fairbanks.
Yukon Chinook count at 95,370 by July 6, down 34 percent from average and short of Alaska and Canadian escapement goals. • Fall chum designated a stock of management concern, forcing communities to restrict harvest on two salmon species at once. • Summer chum run tracking above 900,000 fish, offering some relief for subsistence harvesters.

Twelve smokejumpers dropped on a new fire near Bettles — one more blaze stretching Interior crews thin as lightning keeps the dry north lighting up.

National Weather Service issued a Flood Watch through Tuesday evening for the Upper Koyukuk Valley after heavy rain and snowmelt pushed steep water rises toward Wiseman, Coldfoot, and Bettles along the Dalton Highway.

