If not for last week's massive power outage, who knows how many chinook salmon would be pooling below the Whitehorse fish ladder?

When the outage occurred early last Wednesday afternoon, the amount of water flowing through the Whitehorse Rapids Dam was initially reduced with the turbines off-line, and then increased.

Fish hatchery manager Lawrence Vano said today the change in the Yukon River current turned the salmon's focus to the artificial current created below the ladder by an outflow pipe. Suddenly, there was a rush of fish up the ladder.

Yukon Energy replicated the fluctuation in flows on Friday, and again, fish pooling below the ladder made their way up.

It was repeated Saturday, with the same result, and Yukon Energy was expected to alter flows again today to encourage the chinook to get up and over.

Vano said the sooner the chinook get over the ladder, the better off they are.

Using the dam fluctuations to encourage the fish to climb the ladder is essentially a new tool, he said.

To date, 435 chinook have climbed the ladder, including six this morning

Of that total, 228 are wild salmon, and 207 were hatchery fish. There have been 341 males and 94 females.

This year's run of chinook salmon has been well below average.

Last week's power failure, which affected about 14,000 Yukoners, was attributed to an error by Yukon Energy staff as they upgraded equipment.