No Shooting Zones in Yukon: Where You Can Legally Discharge a Firearm

The Biggest Setback in the Country

Yukon is big-country hunting — moose, caribou, sheep, and grizzly across mountains and boreal that stretch beyond the horizon. With so few people spread across so much land, you might assume discharge rules barely matter here. In fact, Yukon has the largest building setback of any jurisdiction in Canada, and it's the first rule every hunter in the territory needs to know.

This guide covers Yukon's firearm discharge rules and how to keep the restricted ground in front of you.

This is a plain-language overview, not legal advice. Confirm the specifics against the current Yukon Hunting Regulations Summary, the Wildlife Act and Wildlife Regulation, and the local municipality before you hunt.

The 1-Kilometre Rule Around Residences

Under section 13 of the Yukon Wildlife Act, a person shall not hunt or trap wildlife within one kilometre of a building that is a residence — whether or not the occupants are present — unless the person has the permission of the occupants. The parallel offence prohibits discharging a firearm within one kilometre of a residence.

One kilometre is an enormous radius — ten times BC's setback, twice Saskatchewan's. Two features stand out. First, it applies whether or not anyone is home. Second, the burden is on you: the Act puts the onus on the accused to prove they had permission. In practice, this means that anywhere near Whitehorse, the communities, or the scattered residences along the highways, you must assume a 1-kilometre no-hunting bubble around every home unless you've secured permission.

Careless Use and Shooting Across Roads

Under section 10 of the Wildlife Act, no person may discharge or handle a firearm without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for people or property — and the section specifically prohibits discharging across the travelled portion of a road normally used by the public, whether or not anyone is actually endangered. Section 12 separately prohibits hunting in a manner that causes or is likely to cause injury.

As everywhere, the road is for travel. Game across a public road is not a legal target.

Campgrounds, Parks, and Special Management Areas

Land status closes off discharge across parts of the territory:

• Campgrounds — the Campground Regulations prohibit discharging a firearm within, from, or through a campground.
• Territorial parks, national parks, and Special Management Areas — established under Yukon First Nations Final Agreements — prohibit or restrict hunting. Habitat Protection Areas carry area-specific rules.
• National parks (Kluane, Vuntut, Ivvavik) prohibit hunting and firearm discharge, subject to Indigenous harvesting rights.

Yukon publishes its Game Management Areas, parks, protected areas, and habitat protection areas as authoritative open GIS data through GeoYukon — among the most complete territorial mapping in the North.

Municipal Bylaws

Yukon's incorporated communities can set their own firearm rules. The most significant is Whitehorse's Firearms Bylaw, which prohibits discharging a firearm within the city limits unless authorized — and defines "firearm" broadly to include airguns, BB guns, spring-fired weapons, bows with sharp or metal-clad arrows, and slingshots. Most of the territory outside the incorporated communities is unorganized, so municipal discharge bylaws cover only a small fraction of Yukon's land — but where they apply, like Whitehorse, they are strict.

How to See Restricted Zones on Your Map

A 1-kilometre bubble around every residence is a lot of ground to account for, especially near the highways and communities. In CANhunt, the No Shooting / Discharge Restricted layer shades the restricted areas:

• Protected areas — national and territorial parks, National Wildlife Areas, Migratory Bird Sanctuaries, Special Management Areas, and habitat protection areas — from authoritative federal and territorial data.
• Populated areas — Whitehorse and the communities, where discharge is prohibited by bylaw and the 1-kilometre residence rule bites hardest — shown as a broad advisory shade.

The layer is on by default, rendered in black, and works fully offline deep in the backcountry where there's no signal for days.

What it does not replace: the 1-kilometre bubbles around individual residences — which turn on permission — cannot be perfectly mapped. Use the layer to read the parks, protected areas, and communities, then account for the residence setback and secure permission before hunting anywhere near a home.

The Bottom Line

Yukon's rule is the biggest number in the country and the easiest to underestimate: stay one kilometre from any residence unless you have permission, never shoot across a public road, and treat park, Special Management Area, and campground boundaries as hard lines. The territory's scale is its gift — just remember that every cabin and community carries a kilometre-wide buffer, and plan your hunt around them.