St. Lawrence Island

St. Lawrence Island is located west of mainland Alaska in the Bering Sea, just south of the Bering Strait, at about 64° North 170° 28' West. It is part of Alaska, but closer to Russia than to the Alaskan mainland. St. Lawrence Island is thought to be one of the last surviving non-submerged portions of the land bridge that once joined Asia with North America during the Pleistocene period.^[1] It is the sixth largest island in the United States and the 113th largest island in the world.

Geography

False color NASA Landsat image of St. Lawrence Island

Closeup map of St. Lawrence Island

The United States Census Bureau defines St. Lawrence Island as Block Group 6, Census Tract 1 of Nome Census Area, Alaska. As of the 2000 census there were 1,292 people living on a land area of 4,640.12 km² (1,791.56 sq mi). ^[2] The island is about 145 km (90 miles) long and 13–36 km (8–22 miles) wide. The island has no trees, and the only woody plants are Arctic Willow, standing no more than a foot (30 cm) high. The island's abundance of seabirds and marine mammals is due largely to the influence of the Anadyr Current, an ocean current which brings cold, nutrient-rich water from the deep waters of the Bering Sea shelf edge. To the south of the island is a persistent polynya, formed when the prevailing winds from the north and east blow the migrating ice away from the coast.^[3]

Prehistory

St. Lawrence Island was first occupied around 2,000 to 2,500 years ago by coastal people characterized by artifacts decorated in the Okvik (oogfik) style. Archaeological sites on the Punuk Islands, off the eastern end of St. Lawrence Island, at Kukulik, near Savoonga and on the hill slopes above Gambell have evidence of the Okivik occupation. The Okvik decorative style is zoomorphic and elaborate, executed in a sometimes crude engraving technique, with greater variation than the later Old Bering Sea and Punuk styles. The Okivik occupation is influenced by and may have been coincident with the Old Bering Sea occupation of 2000 years ago to around 700 years ago, characterized by the simpler and more homogeneous Punuk style. Stone artifacts changed from chipped stone to ground slate; carved ivory harpoon heads are smaller and simpler in design. Prehistoric and early historic occupations of St. Lawrence Island were never permanent, with periods of abandonment and reoccupation depending on resource availability and changes in weather patterns. Famine was common, as evidenced by Harris lines and enamel hypoplasia in human skeletons. Travel to and from the mainland was common during calm weather, so the island was used as a hunting base, and occupation sites were re-used periodically rather than permanently occupied. Major archaeology sites at Gambell and Savoonga (Kukulik) were excavated by Otto Geist and Ivar Skarland of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Collections from these excavations are curated at the University of Alaska Museum on the UAF campus.

History

The island was called Sivuqaq by the Yupik who lived there. It was visited by Russian/Danish explorer Vitus Bering on St. Lawrence's Day, August 10 (Old Style), 1728, and named after the day of his visit. The island was the first place in Alaska known to have been visited by European explorers. There were about 4,000 Central Alaskan Yupik and Siberian Yupik living in several villages on the island in the mid 1800s. They subsisted by hunting walrus and whale and by fishing. A famine in 1878–1880 caused many to starve and many others to leave, decimating the island's population. Nearly all the residents remaining were Siberian Yupik. Reindeer were introduced on the island in 1900 in an attempt to bolster the economy. The reindeer herd grew to about 10,000 animals by 1917, but has since declined. Reindeer are herded as a source of subsistence meat to this day.

Villages

The island presently contains two villages: Savoonga and Gambell. The two villages were given title to most of the land on St. Lawrence Island by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971. The island is now inhabited mostly by Siberian Yupik engaged in hunting, fishing, and reindeer herding. The St. Lawrence Island Yupik people are also known for their skill in carving, mostly with materials from marine mammals (walrus ivory and whale bone).

Northeast Cape and PCB contamination

The former Northeast Cape Air Force Station at St. Lawrence Island

Northeast Cape Air Force Station (AFS) was a United States Air Force facility consisting of an Aircraft Control and Warning (AC&W) radar site, a United States Air Force Security Service (USAFSS) listening post and a White Alice Communications System (WACS) site constructed at Northeast Cape on St. Lawrence Island. It operated from about 1952 to about 1972. The area surrounding the Northeast Cape base site had been a traditional camp site for several Yupik families for centuries. After the base closed down in the 1970s, many of these people started to experience health problems. Even today, people who grew up at Northeast Cape have high rates of cancer and other diseases, possibly due to PCB exposure around the site.^[4] According to the State of Alaska, those elevated cancer rates have been shown to be comparable to the rates of other Alaskan and non-Alaskan arctic natives who were not exposed to a similar Air Force facility.^[5] In any event, the majority of the facility was removed in a $10.5 million dollar cleanup program in 2003. Monitoring of the site will continue into the future.^[6]

References

Coordinates: 63°30′N, 170°30′W