Introduction

Information Sources

Stop #1
Stop #2
Stop #3
Stop #4
Stop #5 
Stop #6
Stop #7
Stop #8
Stop #9
Stop #10

Appendix 1

Bibliography

Stop # 7. Black Fox Creek

Ne Koo Njik Black Fox Creek was important historically as location for fishing camps, because of upstream fish sources. Black Fox is the name of an Old Crow family who maintained a fishing camp on this creek.

Cut Offs

The meandering streams and rivers of the Old Crow Basin feature regular cutting and filling of river channels which probably takes place quite rapidly and is aided by the breakup of river ice each spring. Gouging marks made by ice blocks can be observed along the gravel bars and on the banks and vegetation nearly every year (Morlan 1973). Drastic seasonal changes in the levels of northern streams are well known and are primarily due to the volume of spring runoff in conjunction with the impermeable frozen soil. Breakup in the spring swells every stream to and beyond the limits of its banks, while the brief but warm and relatively dry summers end with very low water levels.

Major local changes can take place relatively quickly. Here at the mouth of Black Fox Creek is a good example of one of these rapid changes. Just over thirty years ago, in the spring of 1967, the mouth of the Creek moved about 1.5 km southwest when the Old Crow River broke through a narrow neck of land on the inside of a meander bend near the mouth of Black Fox Creek. When the Old Crow River formed a new channel, the difference in elevation between the two sides of the neck of land was great enough that both sides of the former meander bend appear to have drained back into the river. Air photographs show that Black Fox Creek did not begin to flow down the east or downstream channel of the meander bend as one would expect, but instead picked a route in what would have been the upstream channel (Figure 1.7).


Figure 1.7 Click on photo to enlarge photo and see air photos of other years.

Draining Pediments

Black Fox Creek is also of major ecological importance as the major stream which drains the extensive Old Crow pediments area to the east into the Old Crow Flats. The pediments surrounding the flatlands are erosional surfaces probably formed by water flow over slopes under relatively dry climate conditions (see Geomorphology). On the pediments, there are few lakes and streams, and most water flow is in the form of near-surface seepage. In some cases the pediments are overlain with shallow eolian (wind-blown) deposits. The drainage density in the pediments is very low, although seepage lines marked by vegetation differences are numerous. These latter create distinctive ‘feathered’ drainage patterns (see Hydrology). Where drainage channels do occur, they meander in regular forms. All drainage of the pediments is environmentally important because it transports water and nutrients to the Old Crow Flats, thus maintaining the water levels and nutrient status beyond the time of spring runoff.