Chukchi
Sea
Point Hope, Alaska
(Back
to Journey North Ice-out Contest)
Predict This Year's Ice-out Date for the Chukchi Sea!
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Write your prediction on this "Contact Us" form. We'll send news this spring when the Chukchi Sea becomes ice-free and we'll announce the contest winners.
About This Site
Our friends from the village of Point Hope, Alaska will be watching the ice on the Chukchi Sea this spring for signs of ice out. In 2001, the ice was officially gone from the ocean on July 4th. The lagoon had been ice free a couple weeks before, and the river broke up around the first of June.
Ray Benson, science teacher from Tikigaq School (say TICK-key-yock), and her students sent us this update on April 7, 2003:
"Our weather has been extremely warm for this time of year. The sun is intense, reflecting off the white snow makes it feel like Spring is here. We've had three or four sunny, clear days after a blizzard that brought about 6 inches of snow. Today has been ice fog, no planes in or out—but beautiful, not eerie: everything covered with ice crystals. The ice is still on the ocean; there are "leads" off shore, but ice still holds snow machines and such. We are on a gravel spit between the Chuckchi and the Bering seas, very flat close by, then the two Capes in the distance that we see as cliffs when the weather is clear. The people are getting ready for whaling time and are quite busy."
...and this update on April 22, 2003:
"Over
Easter weekend the first whale was landed by one of the whaling crews.
Students are a large part of the crews, as are most of the villagers.
There are two main crews for the village.
We have sunny, 'warm ' weather still—16 to 24 degrees F. The ice
is still strong enough for snowmachines; the hunting is done at open leads
in the ice. Ice moves constantly. A few people had a close call when the
ice they were on started to move away from shore. They all got ashore
safely and most of the equipment was saved."
Teacher Sheila Gaquin tells more about life at Point Hope:
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"Our
village is built on a tattered edge of the North American continent. We
are at the end of a narrow spit of land that stretches 15 miles into the
sea from the mainland. The spit is made mostly of gravel deposited by
the Kukpuk river. Because it is river deposition, it is constantly changing
shape as the waters of the river meet the sea. This photo of the village
of Point Hope was taken from the air. The dark line on the left of the
photo is a ridge line that follows the beach, beyond that line to the
left and top of the photo is the sea ice. As you can see, the ground,
and the ocean are one at this time of year. Its not a great photo--the
plane window kept fogging up.
"This deep into winter, we don't really feel we are living next to
the sea. Instead, we feel we are living on a huge continent of ice that
stretches around the world. Our village is something most people can't
imagine. It is a bit like looking down on a postage stamp in the middle
of football field. Also, there are no outskirts of town, or "rural"
addresses. The village covers about 3 blocks, and beyond that is just
the vastness of the Arctic.
"Ordinarily we have two kinds of sea ice: landfast ice, and floe ice. The landfast ice begins at the beach and extends out a couple of miles or so. It rests on the ocean floor. Farther out, where the water is deeper, the floe ice sits on the surface of the ocean. In the spring, leads open between the landfast ice and the floe ice. It is in these leads that the bowhead whales migrate to the high Arctic, and the Inupiat Eskimo follow in pursuit as they have for centuries."
If you want to read more, see:
Gray whales and all whales with dorsal fins usually come this way only after all the ice is gone. This is because ice can damage their dorsal fins. True Arctic whales, like Belugas and Bowheads, have no dorsal fins and so are often found moving among the floe ice.
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