A small plane touched down Wednesday evening at the Erik Nielsen Whitehorse International Airport after a five-day mission trip that flew over the territory to monitor fish and fish habitats.

The mission, run by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, is one of many conducted through the national Fisheries Aerial Surveillance and Enforcement program. The department organizes missions across the country, this time hitting the Yukon from June 23 to 27.

“We don’t want to be predictable; we don’t follow the same route every time,” said Joseph Humphries, a fisheries officer with the department, who also served as the leading surveillance officer on the trip.

All mission times vary, with the intent that the team covers as much ground as possible, he added.

That can prove especially important after the rising concern of chinook salmon in the territory, which had a large harvest along the Yukon River during the summer of 2017 – on both the Yukon and Alaska sides of the border.

That was according to a report from a technical committee on the Yukon River Panel, which monitors and manages, among other things, salmon stocks in the river.

While there has been no commercial fishing for specifically chinook salmon since 2006 on the Canadian side of the border, Alaska followed suit by doing so for a commercial fishery entirely years later in 2011.

The FASE program looks at this commercial fishing, as well as open and recreational practices. That means it’s tasked with keeping an eye on a range of activities which can involve boats, individuals, and larger-scale operations.

“At times, we are looking at the raw and real,” Humphries smiled. A single person fishing on a river bank or by the lakeshore can be a little bit harder to track than a boat or number of vessels.

While there is communication and co-ordination among other agencies including those in Alaska about the data they gather, Humphries said this is dealt with at a higher level.

“The info we get can be accessed and wrapped up into a synopsis that will be shared at joint national and international working groups,” he explained.

“I don’t have any input or direct association with that,” beyond the ground-level findings that they came across.

This time around, he said he was happy to report that things seemed normal, with no illegal activity being seen.

“With these last few patrols, we didn’t come across any unusual or suspicious activities,” he said, noting that all of the patrol is done from higher up.

The information that is gathered can also be used in court, he explained.

It “is reviewed, and if there’s violations, it will be used to put violation packages together, reports to Crown counsel for prosecution purposes,” and so on, he said.

Data are also compared historically to last year’s patterns, to better determine where fish habitats are most vulnerable.

Humphries has been with the aerial surveillance program since about 2012, helping in both at sea and overland patrols, and in the Yukon for around six months – so he’s had his fair share of tests.

“Weather for these last five days has been a challenge,” he said, so that restricted access to certain areas.

“We didn’t get to fly as low as we would’ve like to in a lot of areas,” he added, especially with wind and dense cloud cover – which doesn’t help in mountainous areas and terrain.

Videos are taken with a flir camera that rests beneath the plane but still toward the front, near where the pilot and co-pilot would sit.

They are able to capture videos from up to about 24 kilometres away, making it ideal for marine environments.

The plane also has a radar dome underneath, which helps detect objects like ships, boats or mountains that the team may come into contact with.

Because of the equipment that sits just below the plane, the aircraft is limited to landing on paved pathways – so the Watson Lake and Whitehorse airports remain the only options.

It’s also outfitted with lights along the sides near the wings, which are especially helpful in the dark.

“Over land, we generally won’t do a lot, but over the marine environment and open water, we’ll do night missions,” Humphries explained.

The plane itself from the inside is very narrow: you’re unable to stand up comfortably in it.

Historically, Humphries noted, there have been five members: the pilot, co-pilot, two sensor operators who control the imagery and technical aspects of gathering data, and a surveillance officer who offers suggestions of where to fly over, among other things.

The team members carry handheld cameras inside so they can snap images as the plane tilts from one wing to another.

The mission itself lasts about four hours and 20 minutes, with a total travel time of about five hours, and remains uninterrupted save for an emergency, or refuelling.

That can take about 20 minutes, but the team tries to budget it so the time spent up in the air is as efficient as possible – especially with higher fuel prices and a small team with fewer resources.

Another member on the mission was Allie Wilson, who hails from the Vancouver Island area. She said she’s fortunate to work in a field that gives her a leg up on some of her other friends.

“We get to see a lot of things that nobody gets to see, so yeah, it is pretty nice,” she smiled.

Flying over areas like the island, the territory and down south to Arizona, she said, the work has been very fulfilling.

“I always appreciated how beautiful B.C. was, but a lot more so since I started this job,” Wilson added.

The trip covered the entire territory, flying over areas like Haines Junction, the Taku River, Dawson City, Alsek River and toward the border with the Northwest Territories.

A one-time resident of B.C., Humphries said he prefers the territory.

“I’m in the Yukon now,” he laughed, adding that “along the river is awesome, but the mountaintops are just as beautiful and pristine.”

Other areas that the team might look at visiting include Dease Lake, Inuvik and Fairbanks, but Humphries said the department often keeps its trips under wraps.