Sockeye salmon in northern Hokkaidō Island in Japan in the western Pacific. They range as far north as the Bathurst Inlet in the Canadian Arctic in the east and the Anadyr River in Siberia in the west. The farthest inland sockeye salmon travel is to Redfish Lake, Idaho, over from the ocean and in elevation. Completely landlocked populations of the same species also are known. Some sockeye live and reproduce in lakes and are commonly called "kokanee", which is red-fish name in the Sinixt Interior Salish language and silver trout in the Okanagan language. They are much smaller than the anadromous variety
Kokanee salmon of landlocked sockeye has occurred more than once with different kokanee populations, showing genetic differences between populations. Most evidence points to events that land-locked the lake-type sockeye (which spawns in streams and lakes, rather than tributaries like the sea-type sockeye, but is still anadromous and spends most of its adult life out at sea), which evolved into the non-anadromous form. Genetic evidence from kokanee in the Fraser River drainage and Columbia River drainage shows that ancestors of the kokanee came from the lake-type sockeye. The data also suggests that the kokanee may have evolved back into a lake-type anadromous form