Shishmarev Inlet

Shishmarev Inlet is a coastal lagoon on the northern side of the Seward Peninsula, separated from the Chukchi Sea by a chain of low islands. At its mouth lies Qigiqtaq, an Iñupiat settlement whose people have long hunted and fished along this coast. In 1816 the navigator Otto von Kotzebue named the inlet for an officer of his expedition, Gleb Shishmarev. Ice and open water offer very different ways of travelling through the lagoon as the seasons turn.