The Tuya River is a major

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drai ...

of the

Stikine River The Stikine River is a major river in northern British Columbia (BC), Canada and southeastern Alaska in the United States. It drains a large, remote upland area known as the Stikine Country east of the Coast Mountains. Flowing west and south f ...

in northwest part of the

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. From its source at High Tuya Lake in Tuya Mountains Provincial Park just south of Ash Mountain, the highest peak of the Tuya Range, the Tuya River flows south about Length measured using BCGNIS coordinates, topographic maps, an
Toporama
/ref> to meet the Stikine River in the Grand Canyon of the Stikine. The Tuya River's main tributary is the Little Tuya River. The Tuya River divides the Tanzilla Plateau on the east from the

Kawdy Plateau The Kawdy Plateau is a plateau in northern British Columbia, Canada, located between the Nahlin and Tuya Rivers. It includes the granitic Atsutla Range and Nazcha Hills and the volcanic Kawdy Mountain. See also *List of plateaus in British Co ...

, to the northwest, and the

Nahlin Plateau The Nahlin Plateau is a plateau in northwestern British Columbia, Canada, located between the Sheslay River and Tuya River on the west and east and the Nahlin River and the Stikine River to the north and south. It is a subplateau of the Stikine Pl ...

, to the southwest. All three are considered sub-plateaus of the Stikine Plateau. The Tuya River's watershed covers , and its mean annual discharge is estimated at . The mouth of the Tuya River is located about northeast of

Telegraph Creek Telegraph Creek is a small community located off Highway 37 in northern British Columbia at the confluence of the Stikine River and Telegraph Creek. The only permanent settlement on the Stikine River, it is home to approximately 250 members of ...

, British Columbia, about southwest of

Dease Lake Dease Lake is a small community located in the Cassiar Country of the Northern Interior of British Columbia, Canada. It is located a few hours south of the Yukon border on Stewart–Cassiar Highway (Highway 37) at the south end of the lake ...

, British Columbia, and about east of Juneau, Alaska. The Tuya River's watershed's land cover is classified as 35.7% shrubland, 31.4% conifer forest, 14.0%

mixed forest Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is a temperate climate terrestrial habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature, with broadleaf tree ecoregions, and with conifer and broadleaf tree mixed coniferous forest ecoregions. These fo ...

, 7.2% herbaceous, and small amounts of other cover. A

tuya A tuya is a flat-topped, steep-sided volcano formed when lava erupts through a thick glacier or ice sheet. They are rare worldwide, being confined to regions which were covered by glaciers and had active volcanism during the same period. As lava ...

is a geologic term for a flat-topped, steep-sided

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the Crust (geology), crust of a Planet#Planetary-mass objects, planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and volcanic gas, gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Ear ...

formed when

lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...

erupts through a thick

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...

ice sheet In glaciology, an ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier, is a mass of glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than . The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the Last Glacial Period at La ...

. The geologic term comes from Tuya Butte, which was named in association with Tuya Lake. The term may come the

Tahltan language Tahltan, Tāłtān, also called Tałtan ẕāke ("Tahltan people language"), dah dẕāhge ("our language") or didene keh ("this people’s way") is a poorly documented Northern Athabaskan language historically spoken by the Tahltan people (also ...

. The Tuya River is in the traditional territory of the

Tahltan First Nation The Tahltan First Nation, also known as the Tahltan Indian Band, is a band government of the Tahltan people. Their main community and reserves are located at Telegraph Creek, British Columbia. Their language is the Tahltan language, which is an ...

, of the Tahltan people, the Kaska Dena First Nation, and the Teslin Tlingit First Nation.

Geography

The Tuya River originates at High Tuya Lake in Tuya Mountains Provincial Park, just south of Ash Mountain, the highest peak of the Tuya Range. It flows south to Tuya Lake, southeast of Tuya Butte and east of Mount Josephine. The tributary Butte Creek, flowing south from Butte Lake in Tuya Mountains Provincial Park, empties into Tuya Lake. From the southern end of Tuya Lake the Tuya River continues south. It is joined by Josephine Creek and numerous unnamed tributaries. Continuing south the Tuya River flows east of Tachilta Lakes, collecting more tributaries including Cody Creek, Tachilta Creek, Mckessock Creek, and Ross Creek. A few kilometres west of Cariboo Meadows the Tuya River is joined by its main tributary, the Little Tuya River. As the river nears the Stikine River it is joined by Classy Creek, then flows under Telegraph Creek Road. The Tuya River empties into the Stikine River near Days Ranch, the mouth of the Klastline River, and the Tahltan

Indian reserve In Canada, an Indian reserve (french: réserve indienne) is specified by the '' Indian Act'' as a "tract of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that has been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band." In ...

of " Tahltan 10", of the

Geology

Coal has been found in rocks exposed in the drainage of the Tuya River and its tributaries the Little Tuya River and Mansfield Creek, between the communities of

and

in northwestern BC. This coal field is called the Tuya River Coal Basin. The coal was first discovered in 1904, but the main exploration of its economic potential occurred in the late 1970s to 1990s by PetroCanada.Ryan, B.D. 1991. Geology and Potential Coal and Coalbed Methane Resource of the Tuya River Coal Basin; in Geological Fieldwork 1990, B.C. Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, Paper 1991-1, pp. 419-427.

Natural history

The Tuya River drainage provides very high quality salmon spawning habitat, but fish passage is blocked by several barriers including an waterfall located about above the mouth of the Tuya and another significant barrier about upriver. In addition, a 2006 landslide created a barrier to fish passage near the mouth of the Tuya River.

Chinook salmon The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Pacific salmon in North America, as well as the largest in the genus '' Oncorhynchus''. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other ...

spawn in the lowermost portion of the river, below the blockage. In the 1950s the Alaska Department of Fish and Game assessed the Tuya River as having the highest level of potential salmon spawning habitat of any transboundary river, possibly capable of supporting more sockeye salmon than the entire Stikine River. The

Pacific Salmon Commission The Pacific Salmon Commission is a regulatory body run jointly by the Canadian and United States governments. Its mandate is to protect stocks of the five species of Pacific salmon. Its precursor was the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Comm ...

, a joint US-Canada transboundary river salmon protection regulatory body, has made the Tuya River a major component of its efforts to improve fish stocks in the Stikine River watershed. In 2008 explosives were used to blast through the fish barrier created by the 2006 landslide. Field studies in 2009 indicated that the landslide barrier had been successfully breached. Salmonid species found in the Tuya River in 2009 included Chinook salmon, sockeye salmon,

coho salmon The coho salmon (''Oncorhynchus kisutch;'' Karuk: achvuun) is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family (biology), family and one of the five Pacific salmon species. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon or "silvers". The scientif ...

pink salmon Pink salmon or humpback salmon (''Oncorhynchus gorbuscha'') is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family. It is the smallest and most abundant of the Pacific salmon. The scientific species name is based on the Russian common name for ...

, rainbow trout, and

bull trout The bull trout (''Salvelinus confluentus'') is a char of the family Salmonidae native to northwestern North America. Historically, ''S. confluentus'' has been known as the " Dolly Varden" (''S. malma''), but was reclassified as a separate speci ...

References

External links

* {{cite web , url= https://www.env.gov.bc.ca/skeena/fish/sk_series_reports/sk_135.pdf , title= A Reconnsaisance of Tuya Lake August 7-13, 2002 , last= Beere , first= Mark C. , date= 2002 , publisher= British Columbia Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection Cassiar Land District Nahlin Plateau Rivers of British Columbia Stikine Country Tahltan Tlingit Tributaries of the Stikine River