Chukchi Sea

The Chukchi Sea opens north of the Bering Strait between the Chukotka Peninsula and Alaska. Wrangel Island and the Long Strait bound it on the west, Point Barrow marks its eastern edge, and the Bering Strait ties its waters to the Pacific. It is a shallow Arctic sea: depths below fifty metres cover 56 percent of its floor, and ice leaves only about four months in which navigation is generally possible.

For coastal communities, the sea provided more than a route. Its open leads and seasonal ice supported access to marine animals, while currents and drifting floes made every crossing conditional on weather. Semyon Dezhnyov sailed from the Kolyma to the Anadyr in 1648, but the feat did not establish a practical corridor; his northern passage was not used for the next two centuries. Vitus Bering entered from the Pacific in 1728, and James Cook followed in 1779.

The Chukchi Sea forms one of the most direct connections between the Pacific and Arctic oceans, yet its shallow floor, persistent ice and sudden storms impose severe limits. Ships can use the summer season, while hunters and coastal peoples read the moving boundary of ice and water.