Tongass National Forest

Tongass » Visitor Centers » Mendenhall Glacier » Steep Creek SalmonCam

Steep Creek SalmonCam

Live fish cam

Summer visitors to the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center may get a fish-eye view of a fishy environment, thanks to an underwater video camera that has been set up in Steep Creek, near the center. Steep Creek is one of 23 Nature Watch (click on Alaska on the map) sites on the Tongass. The fishcam provides a view of salmon moving up the creek to spawn. Salmon are in the stream from July to November.

The underwater camera normally operates from the end of June until early September. This is during the height of adult salmon activity, but also provides views of salmon fry feeding on insects and eggs, ducks dabbling and swimming by, occassional beavers and river otters darting past, and even bear strolling through the creek! Camera placement can vary depending on stream conditions and connects to the Visitors Center through a buried coaxial cable.

This project originated in the mid-1990s as part of an Eagle Scout project. Local Juneau resident Matt Statsney coordinated efforts between the US Forest Service and local businesses to purchase and install the camera and television for public viewing.

If you visit the center, you can watch the action live from a monitor in the covered viewing area during normal hours of operation. Here on the Internet, you can see short video clips of the fish.

The camera also caught ducks swimming and diving to feed on the bottom of the stream. A camera set up to shoot the inside of a beaver lodge captured a beaver "at home."

• Fish video clips
• Duck video clip
• Beaver video clip

Salmon - the good, the bad, and the ugly

Salmon life cycle - around and around we go

What was that fish that just swam by?

Did you know?

Fishy terms you may have heard

Fish parts, clean and simple