Nushagak River

Mouth of the Nushagak River in the Bristol Bay

The Nushagak River is a tributary of the Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska.

It rises in the Nushagak Hills, a small mountain range between the Kuskokwim and Chigmit Mountains, flows southwestward and flows east from Dillingham to 450 km together with the Wood River in the Nushagak Bay, a secondary bay in the north of Bristol Bay.

The rivers Nuyakuk, King Salmon, Iowithla and Kokwok open into the Nushagak. The largest tributary is the River Mulchatna. Villages in the course of the river are Portage Creek, Ekwok, Koliganek and New Stuyahok.

Russian explorers were the first Europeans in 1824, the expeditions into the hinterland, where they discovered the Kuskokwim, Yukon and the Koyukuk, navigated the river.

With king salmon, silver salmon, sockeye salmon, chum salmon and pink salmon all five Pacific salmon species come to spawn in the Nushagak or one of its tributaries.

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