North Pacific High Sea

St Lawrence Island, called Sivuqaq by its Yupik inhabitants, stands in the northern Bering Sea between Alaska and Siberia. Its people hunted whales and walruses and maintained ties with communities on the Chukchi coast through trade and marriage. In 1728 Vitus Bering's expedition encountered the island and named it for the saint whose feast fell on the day of the visit. The waters around it had long been familiar to the islanders.