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In cooperation with DFO a fish ladder was installed on the main Sackville River in 1990 to allow unimpeded fish migration past the falls at Hefler's Lumber Mill. The ladder or fishway incorporates a cage in which migrating fish are temporarily trapped so that they may be counted. The ladder is checked daily for Atlantic salmon from May to November every year. 

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Note - the location of the fish ladder and fish counting facility (roughly 9km upstream from the river mouth at the Bedford Basin) means that we are not counting all of the fish that come up the river, with several tributaries (including the two largest to the main Sackville River - the Little Sackville River and Peverills Brook) offering opportunities for fish to turn left and right while heading up the river before they get to the ladder. We are only counting those that continue up the main river to this point, so these numbers are just a representation of the number of salmon in the river each year (mid-May through mid-November), not a total/absolute count of salmon in the river.

In addition, we are only counting the fish that choose to go up through the fish ladder - some traverse the falls next to the fish ladder and bypass the counter. So these numbers are also just representative numbers based on conditions at the time conducive to salmon jumping the falls and bypassing the ladder all together.

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In the data tables below, any date marked with an "*" indicates a year in which the fish ladder/counter was shut down for part of the season due to lack of flow for fish passage (2020, 2023, 2024, 2025) or the facility being blocked by flood debris (2023). Interesting enough, in 2023 the fishway was shut down in early summer due to extreme low water flow, only to remain shut down after the extreme flood event of July that year that caused the river to rise at least 12 feet in one event, flooding the fishway completely and leaving behind damage and debris once the flood waters receded later that winter/spring.

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