Taku River

The Taku River is a river running from British Columbia, Canada, to the northwestern coast of North America, at Juneau, Alaska. Its mouth coincides with the Alaska-British Columbia border. The river basin spreads across 27,500 square kilometres (10,600 sq mi).

During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Taku Indians controlled the trade routes on the river and compelled natives of the Interior to use them as middle-men, instead of allowing trade directly with white settlers.

The Hudson's Bay Company established a trading post called Fort Durham, also known as Fort Taku, near the mouth of the Taku River in the early 1840s to take advantage of the natural trade route. However, by 1843, Fort Durham had been abandoned as unprofitable.

Although a major river, the Taku's name does not extend to its headwaters. Its name begins at the confluence of the Inklin and Nakina Rivers, which is the location of the tiny community of Inklin. The Inklin's name also only extends upstream to the confluence of the Nahlin and Sheslay Rivers, which the Nakina's main tributaries are the Sloko and Silver Salmon Rivers.

One account of its name is that "Taku" is the Tlingit language word for "salmon" but the Taku Tlingit name for themselves T'aaku Kwáan translates as "Geese Flood Upriver Tribe"". There are also two kwaans of the Tlingit people inland in British Columbia, the Áa Tlein Kwáan ("Big Lake Tribe", today organized as the Taku River Tlingit First Nation) and the Deisleen Kwáan ("Big Sinew Tribe", today organized as the Teslin Tlingit Council); the territory of the former includes those areas of the Taku basin in British Columbia.