The Finlay begins by falling. It slips out of the foot of Thutade Lake, high in the Omineca Mountains, drops over Cascadero Falls and twists away through cascades and rapids, and that lake is the farthest source of the Mackenzie. Water you cast across up here is on its way to the Arctic Ocean, by way of a reservoir, the Peace and a good part of the continent.
The river has three parts. The upper Finlay is mountain water, from the falls down to the place where a big tributary, the Toodoggone, comes in. Below that it runs through a protected corridor of wild country to Kwadacha, the community also called Fort Ware, in the Rocky Mountain Trench. The lower river carries on south through the trench, through one short canyon, and ends in the Finlay Reach of Williston Lake.
Start at Kwadacha. The village sits where the Finlay meets the Kwadacha and Fox rivers, about 70 km above the reservoir, with a boat launch on the Finlay and a small airport. It is a long logging-road drive in by way of Tsay Keh Dene, and the river below the village is the part you can reach without a plane.
Bull trout come up out of Williston into the tributaries after
rainbow trout and
kokanee, so every clear creek mouth on the way down is worth a few casts.
The middle river is the reward for the effort. Finlay-Russel Park covers the river from the Fox up to the Toodoggone, a corridor of mountain country with caribou, moose and goats, where bull trout, rainbows and
Arctic grayling are the fish. There is no real road; you come in by air, or float it in a canoe or raft if you have the skill for long portages and big water.
The upper river below Cascadero Falls is mine country and serious canoe water, reached on long resource roads toward the mines near Thutade Lake or by air. Leave it until you know the lower river, and let the Fox and the Kwadacha, the two rivers that meet the Finlay at the village, pull you up toward the mountains first.
Water and habitat
Below the Toodoggone this is a big river running over the glacial and river gravels of the trench, with clear tributaries coming in from both sides. Bull trout hunt the seams where a clear creek meets the main current, and sit deep along the drop-off at the edge of the plume. Grayling and rainbows hold in moving water over gravel: tailouts, riffle heads, the soft water along a gravel bar. Above the Toodoggone the river steepens into rapids and cascades, with fish in the pockets behind boulders and in the slow water below each drop.
How to fish it
For bull trout, use a 7- or 8-weight with a sink-tip and one big streamer in white, olive or a kokanee pink. Stand above a creek mouth, cast down and across into the seam where clear water meets the river, and let it swing along the edge of the colour, then strip it back in long pulls. No takes after a dozen swings? Add weight, slow down, then try the next creek.
For grayling and rainbows, a 4- or 5-weight and one dry: a size 10 Stimulator to find fish, then a size 14 or 16 Adams once they show. Cast across, drift it drag-free and let the fish turn down before you lift. If they rise short, go smaller.
Access and safety
Road access runs through Mackenzie and the logging roads north to Tsay Keh Dene and Kwadacha, a long day on rough gravel with your own fuel and spares. Road access into the park from Kwadacha is limited, and nobody vouches for its condition. Bring a stove, since campfires are not permitted in the park, and carry or treat your water. Deserters Canyon, just above the reservoir, was dangerous at high water in the freighting days; walk down and look at it before you run it, and carry around it if the water is up. On Williston, sudden winds raise big waves, floating and submerged wood is everywhere, and launches can be unusable at low water. This is bear country, a long way from help.