Nuvuqaq

Nuvuqaq, known in Russian as Naukan, stood on the steep coast near the eastern tip of the Chukchi Peninsula. Its Yupik inhabitants hunted the whales and other marine mammals that passed through the Bering Strait, and built homes and storage places adapted to the rocky shore. The settlement has a long history, with remains dating from the fifteenth century onward.

In 1648 the Russian explorer Semyon Dezhnev passed through the strait and left an early written account of Naukan and its people. The cape was later visited by other navigators, including Vitus Bering and James Cook in the eighteenth century. For the people of Nuvuqaq, the waters between Asia and America were not simply a passage for explorers, but a hunting ground and a link to neighbouring communities.