Dolly Varden or Arctic Char. I honestly can’t see a difference in the two.

Dolly Varden.
Dolly's over winter in spring fed streams
Arctic Char overwinter in lakes.
AC are also much bigger.

Dolly Parten trout have more meat.

Kenai River Dolly Varden Char and Big Lake Arctic Char both in spawning colors. Around here they are distinct and not too hard to tell apart. Dollies have a thicker peduncle (section just in front of tail) and Arctic Char peduncle is much thinner. Arctic char have bigger spots. And obviously the colors are different at least in these 2 water bodies.

Ahhh, thanks fellas.

A buddy of mine brought me "aged" arctic char from Kivalina. Swore up and down it was the best eaten frozen fish. After sitting in my freezer for months, I decided to try it dipped in seal oil with salt. It was amazingly mellow flavored frozen fish. I ate the whole thing and gnawed on the head and bones.
It was really good.

We have a few here. I thought they run to the ocean. They get sort of spawned out looking sometimes even the meat gets mushy towards the tail.

The difference in color probably has a lot to do with time of year also. The Dolly looks like early August? just starting on the way to spawning the AC obviously mid winter post spawning. We dont get Arctic char here only dollys. The closest char are east of the Horton River near Paulatuk. There are char in Alaska North Slope near Kaktovik that may travel the ocean into Canada. But i think those are dolly varden also.

The ocean run char are the best richest for eating. Once they hit the rivers they stop eating and begin to loose fat. By the time they get to the fish holes they are just skinny. Those ones you need to dip in seal oil. Why if they stop eating you can still catch them on flies in the river? I dont know and if anyone wants to challenge me on that Ill back down right quick.

Muskrat you are right the dolly was September and the A C was March. The full spawning colors are much brighter. Our dollies are both sea run and resident in some of the larger river systems also some live in lakes. The AC we have may be residual from another era they seem to mostly live in lakes. Leftovers from the end of the ice age or something I don't know. I was going to guess the netted fish in your pics were dollies mainly based on the thick tail portion but also the small spots. Overall AC tend to be more slender build than dollies from what I've seen. Good thread!

A couple more Big Lake Arctic Char

I briefly worked as an ADFG fish tech in Kodiak in ‘85 and was on the tail end of a D V tagging study. The DV would winter in the Buskin River (sockeye/lake system) , migrate out to sea in the spring, then go up various streams for part of the summer, back to sea and up the Buskin in the fall . Extent of my knowledge re DV and AC

Land locked char always have that orange color. a resident spawning male is a nice looking variation. Nearly all black with orange and white fins usually about 8 to as big as 13 inches. In 23 years of char work I've seen 2 5-6 inch juvenile males in full spawning colors with the kype and all. I'll find a picture if I can. I've been tagging DV char since I was 16-17 years old. Until the recent satellite tagging it was thought the anadromous fish fed strictly in the near shore shallows but it turns out they feed 100+km off shore as well.

Small sweep. There’s a Couple of those mushy females YJ mentioned. Watery flesh after spawning. All the silvers have been to the ocean but aren’t spawning that year. 1 spawning male pictured. Normally we’d have them in deeper water waiting to be tagged but the migration was late and water was low so we worked with what we had. I remember that year we took shorter seines to avoid catching too many at once. My favourite project by far.

Challenging year. The net was kicking up slush off the river bottom and making it near impossible to hang on. Fish were escaping under the thin ice. Some crew members were slipping around and falling. Some years were perfect and some were horrible.

I was told long ago by 2 different bios that true arctic char only exist in Russia and in Bristol Bay lakes. I think there is a lake near Teller that also has char. I think all the pics on this thread are just different versions of a dolly. However, Tom is correct in calling them dolly varden char as they are a member of the char family.
I've also been told that dollies have been tagged in Alaska and caught later in Russia!

Well, that was long ago.
Nowadays, if they identify as an arctic char, who are you to say different, right?

Yes, extensive range in Bristol Bay region.

https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=arcticchar.main


In Alaska, Arctic char are often confused with a closely-related species, Salvelinus malma (Dolly Varden), since Dolly Varden have similar coloration and inhabit the same locations as Arctic char. In many cases, definitively distinguishing Arctic char from a Dolly Varden requires close examination of several body structures. Generally speaking however, Arctic char tend to have fewer and larger spots, a more deeply-forked tail, and a narrower caudal peduncle (the area before the tail fin) than Dolly Varden. Spawning Arctic char are usually gold, orange, yellow or rose and only infrequently red, while spawning Dolly Varden are usually red or pink on the lower abdomen with bright red spots. Spawning male Arctic char also have a much smaller kype (hooked lower jaw) than spawning male Dolly Varden.

Arctic char are found in lakes in the Brooks Range, the Kigluaik Mountains, the Kuskokwim Mountains, the Alaska Peninsula, Kenai Peninsula, Kodiak Island, and in a small area of Interior Alaska near Denali Park.
** (And Big Lake in the Susitna Valley) My addition**

I fished them in Bristol Bay on rod and reel in King Salmon. They bite good in early spring in April before the kings showed up. I figured they were running up from the ocean, salt water was just a mile away.

The king fishing there was awesome too.