The candlefish, also eulachon or hooligan, is a small ocean fish, Thaleichthys pacificus, a smelt found along the northern Pacific coast of North America from Oregon to Alaska. It gets its name from the fact that it is so fat during spawning that, if caught, dried, and strung on a wick, it can be burned as a candle.
Eulachon are generally blue-silver in color turning to gray-brown at spawning time when the males are easily distinguished from the females by tubercles on the head and on the scales along the lateral line, more musculature development along the lateral line, and longer paired pectoral and pelvic fins.
The eulachon was important as a food staple and as barter with inland tribes, thus the famous "kleena" or grease trails of Southeast Alaska and British Columbia.
Spawning eulachon and spent bodies of spawned-out eulachon are eaten by gulls, eagles, and bears and by the white and green sturgeon in the larger rivers of Southeast Alaska, British, Columbia, and the Pacific Northwest.
Eulachons are small, short-lived, anadromous smelts that can be found from the southern Bering Sea to northern California, approximately in the area corresponding to the coastal temperate rain forest.
Eulachon grease is composed mainly of oleic, stearic, and palmitic acids.
The commercial eulachon fishery was closed in 1997 due to the inability to control effort and participation and to ensure conservation objectives were met.
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