Fish and marine mammals are important sources of food for the town’s residents. Like other communities on Alaska’s North Slope, Utqiagvik faces direct threats from oil spills, pollution from industrial development, and climate change.

Here is some information about life on the northern tip of Alaska.

  1. Utqiagvik is the northernmost city in the United States and the ninth northernmost city in the world.
  2. It is 320 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
  3. When the sun sets here on November 18 or 19, it does not rise again for 65 days.
  4. Utqiagvik is not connected by road to the rest of Alaska, although it is the economic center of the North Slope Borough.
  5. More than 4000 people live here and survive mainly by hunting whales, seals, polar bears, walruses, waterfowl, caribou, and fishing from the Arctic Ocean or nearby rivers and lakes.
  6. Archaeological sites in the area indicate that the Inupiat lived in the area as early as 500 AD.
  7. Point Barrow, a cape nine miles from the city, is where the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas meet.
  8. Scientists say the Arctic is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and former North Slope Borough Mayor Edward Itta called Utqiagvik “ground zero for climate change science.”
  9. On average, high temperatures in Utqiagvik are above freezing only 120 days a year, while temperatures are zero degrees or below 160 days a year.
  10. Utqiagvik was the setting for the 2011 Hollywood movie “Big Miracle” about an attempt to save three whales trapped in sea ice.
By: Morris AnnaPosted on Categories : Categories : Interesting about Barrow