Point Barrow

Point Barrow or Nuvuk is a headland on the Arctic coast in the U.S. state of Alaska, 9 miles (14 km) northeast of Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow). It is the northernmost point of all the territory of the United States, at 71°23′20″N 156°28′45″W, 1,122 nautical miles (1,291 mi; 2,078 km) south of the North Pole. (The northernmost point on the North American mainland, Murchison Promontory in Canada, is 40 miles (64 km) farther north.)

Geography

Point Barrow is an important geographical landmark, marking the limit between two marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean, the Chukchi Sea to the west and the Beaufort Sea to the east.

History

Archaeological evidence indicates that Point Barrow was occupied by the ancestors of the Iñupiat for almost 1,000 years prior to the arrival of the first Europeans. Occupation continued into the 1940s. The headland is an important archaeological site, yielding burials and artifacts associated with the Thule culture, including uluit and bola. The waters off Point Barrow are on the bowhead whale migration route and it is surmised, that the site was chosen to make hunting easier. There are also burial mounds in the area, at the nearby Birnirk site, associated with the earlier Birnirk culture, a pre-Thule culture first identified in 1912 by Vilhjalmur Stefansson while excavating in the area. The settlement was called Nuvuk, and it was near the "migration path of bowhead whales which would become the cultural and nutritional centre of Nuvuk life."

Point Barrow was named in 1826 by English explorer Frederick William Beechey for Sir John Barrow, a statesman and geographer of the British Admiralty. The water around it is normally ice-free for two or three months a year, but this was not the experience of the early explorers.