Point Barrow

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title: "Point Barrow" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["headlands-of-alaska", "landforms-of-north-slope-borough,-alaska"] topic_path: "general/headlands-of-alaska" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Barrow" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::data[format=table title="Infobox settlement"]

FieldValue
namePoint Barrow
native_nameik
settlement_typeNorthernmost point of the United States
total_type
image_skylinePoint Barrow Alaska, Northernmost point of the United States. The object on the beach is a Bowhead whale jawbone (3840990237).jpg
dot_x
pushpin_mapAlaska
pushpin_label_positionbottom
pushpin_map_captionLocation within the state of Alaska
subdivision_typeCountry
subdivision_nameUnited States
subdivision_type1State
subdivision_name1Alaska
subdivision_type2Borough
subdivision_name2North Slope
parts_style
parts
p2
leader_title1
established_title
unit_prefImperial
area_total_km2
area_land_km2
elevation_footnotes
population_density_km2
timezoneAKST
utc_offset-9
timezone_DSTAKDT
utc_offset_DST-8
coor_type
coordinates
postal_code_type
::

::callout[type=note] the headland in Alaska ::

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Point Barrow or Nuvuk is a headland on the Arctic coast in the U.S. state of Alaska, 9 mi northeast of Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow). It is the northernmost point of all the territory of the United States, at , 1122 nmi south of the North Pole. (The northernmost point on the North American mainland, Murchison Promontory in Canada, is 40 mi further 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

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Ukpeagvik_mounds.jpg" caption="Ukpeagvik mounds"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Alaska_-Point_Barrow-NARA-_23942255.jpg" caption="Point Barrow in the 1940s"] ::

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. Beechey could not reach it by ship and had to send a ship's boat ahead.

In 1826, John Franklin tried to reach it from the east, but was blocked by ice.

In 1837, Thomas Simpson walked 50 miles west to Point Barrow after his boats were stopped by ice.

In 1849, William Pullen rounded it in two whale boats after sending two larger boats back west because of the ice.

During the winter of 1897–1898, the Overland Relief Expedition took place to rescue 265 whalers trapped near Point Barrow.

Point Barrow has been a jumping-off point for many Arctic expeditions, including the 1926 Wilkins Detroit Arctic Expedition and the April 15, 1928, Eielson–Wilkins flight across the Arctic Ocean to Spitsbergen. ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Wilkins_arctic_expedition_1926.jpg" caption="Wilkins-Detroit Arctic Expedition"] ::

On August 15, 1935, an airplane crash killed aviator Wiley Post and his passenger, the entertainer Will Rogers, at the Rogers–Post Site, 33 km (20.5 mi) southwest of Point Barrow.

In 1946, William C. Trimble of the State Department discussed an alternate offer of land in Point Barrow, as part of a $100 million in gold bullion offer to Denmark to purchase Greenland. Had the Alaska trade occurred, from 1967 Denmark would have benefited from Prudhoe Bay Oil Field, the richest petroleum discovery in American history.

In 1988, gray whales were trapped in the ice at Point Barrow, which attracted attention from the public worldwide. The Iñupiat do not hunt gray whales and joined in rescue operation Operation Breakthrough, which also involved Soviet icebreakers.

Demographics

|1880= 200 |1890= 152 |1910= 127 |1920= 91 |1930= 82 |1940= 28 |align-fn=center |footnote=U.S. Decennial Census Point Barrow first appeared in the 1880 U.S. census as the unincorporated Inuit village of "Kokmullit" (AKA Nuwuk). All 200 residents were Inuit. In 1890, it returned as Point Barrow, which also included the Refuge & Whaling Station and native settlements of Nuwuk, Ongovehenok and winter village on "Kugaru" (Inaru) River. It reported 152 residents, of which 143 were Native American, eight were "other race" and one was white. It did not report in 1900, but appeared again from 1910-1940. It has not reported separately since.

Barrow, a city of 5,000, changed its name to Utqiagvik, its Inupiaq name, on December 1, 2016.

References

References

  2. (25 April 2017). "The Northernmost Points In The United States".
  3. Black, Richard. (December 31, 2007). "Bodies point to Alaska's past". BBC.
  4. Anderson, Douglas D.. (1998). "Archaeology of Prehistoric Native America: an Encyclopedia". Taylor & Francis.
  5. (2015). "Cold War Science and the Transatlantic Circulation of Knowledge". Brill.
  6. (August 31, 1977). "Historian Claims U.S. Tried to Buy Greenland". [[Hattiesburg American]].
  7. (May 2, 1991). "Wanna Buy Greenland? The United States Once Did". [[Associated Press]].
  8. Mauer, Richard. (1988-10-18). "Unlikely Allies Rush to Free 3 Whales". New York Times.
  9. "U.S. Decennial Census". Census.gov.
  10. (1949). "Geological Survey Professional Paper".
  11. (1880). "Statistics of the Population of Alaska".
  12. "Report on Population and Resources of Alaska at the Eleventh Census: 1890". Government Printing Office.
  13. DeMarba, Alex. (November 8, 2016). "Tributes pour into Alaska for North Slope leader Edward Itta".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

headlands-of-alaskalandforms-of-north-slope-borough,-alaska