The Oklan (; Koryak language: Ыӄлан) is a river in Kamchatka Krai, Russia. The length of the river is and the area of its drainage basin is . It is the second most important tributary of the Penzhina after the Belaya.
The name of the river comes from the Koryak language yḳlan (ыӄлан), meaning 'icy way'.[Leontiev V.V., Novikova K.A. Toponymic dictionary of the North-East of the USSR / scientific. ed. G. A. Menovshchikov; FEB AS USSR . North-East complex. Research Institute. Lab. archeology, history and ethnography. - Magadan: Magadan . book. publishing house, 1989. - S. 290. - 456 p. — ISBN 5-7581-0044-7]
History
Russian
Cossack explorers reached the Oklan river basin in the 17th century and built the
Aklansk fort. The fort was abandoned in 1804. At that time the indigenous
Koryaks were engaged in
reindeer herding and fishing. The settlement was revived in the 20th century as a state farm dedicated to reindeer-breeding.
Course
The Oklan has its source in Mount Stolovaya, located in the western part of the
Ichigem Range, at the NW end of the
Koryak Highlands. It flows roughly eastwards along the southern limits of the range area, descending into a swampy
floodplain with numerous small lakes where it splits into branches. Finally it meets the right bank of the Penzhina from its mouth in the Bering Sea.
[Google Earth][ Water of Russia - Оклан]
The river is fed mainly by snow and freezes in October, staying under thick ice until May. The melting of the ice in the river valley continues during the summer period. The main tributaries of the Oklan are the long Khayoklam (Хайоклан) from the right and the long Bolshoy Chalbugchan (Хайоклан) from the left.[
]
Flora and fauna
The Oklan river basin is characterized by discontinuous permafrost with tundra vegetation, including , , Krummholz, and .[V. Yu. Neshataeva, Vegetation cover of the North of the Kamchatka Okrug (Kamchatsky Krai) and its geobotanical zoning // Ecology and geography of plants and plant communities: Proceedings of the IV International Scientific Conference. - Yekaterinburg, 2018. - April 16. — ISBN 978-5-7741-0341-6] There are and Populus growing along the river banks in the floodplain.
Among the fish species in the river the Esox and the Thymallus deserve mention.
See also
External links