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The Slims River (Ä’äy Chù) was a glacially fed For the first time on record, human-caused climate change has rerouted an entire river
/ref> The Slims River was purportedly named after a pack horse that drowned while attempting to ford the stream during the 1903 Kluane gold rush. It is crossed by the
The Slims River (Ä’äy Chù) was a glacially fed river
A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...
in the Canadian territory
Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...
of Yukon
Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...
. Until 2016, it originated in the Kaskawulsh Glacier
The Kaskawulsh Glacier is a vast, temperate valley glacier nestled in the St. Elias Mountains, within Kluane National Park in the Canadian territory of Yukon.
Geography
Located approximately above sea level, the glacier covers more than of the s ...
, then ran approximately 15 mi (24 km) into the southern terminus of Kluane Lake
Kluane Lake is located in the southwest area of the Yukon. It is the largest lake contained entirely within Yukon at approximately , and long.
Kluane Lake is located approximately northwest of Haines Junction. The Alaska Highway follows most of ...
.
Over the course of a few days in the spring of 2016 the flow of the river was changed. Where the meltwater of the Kaskawulsh Glacier had been draining in two directions, now it was all draining into the south-flowing Kaskawulsh river, and further on into the Gulf of Alaska, drastically reducing the size of the Slims. Researchers suggested the change in flow could be due to manmade climate change; this was the first time manmade climate change was implicated in the reorganization of a river./ref> The Slims River was purportedly named after a pack horse that drowned while attempting to ford the stream during the 1903 Kluane gold rush. It is crossed by the