Point Barrow
| Point Barrow | ||
| Geographical location | ||
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| Coordinates | 71 ° 23 '20 " N , 156 ° 28' 45" W | |
| Waters 1 | Chukchi Sea | |
| Waters 2 | Beaufortsee | |
Point Barrow is the northernmost headland of the US state Alaska and thus the northernmost point in the United States .
geography
The headland is located 15 km northeast of the city of Utqiaġvik and separates the Chukchi Sea in the west from the Beaufort Sea in the east.
history
At this point there had been a settlement called Nuvuk since at least the 11th century . Point Barrow received renewed interest as an archaeological site in the mid-1990s. Since then, the graves of the early Nuvuk have been uncovered again and again through erosion , which accelerates through thawing permafrost soil . They seem to belong to the early Thule culture .
From a European point of view, the headland was discovered by Thomas Elson on August 22, 1826 . The English geographer Frederick William Beechey , who anchored with the HMS Blossom at Icy Cape to await the expeditions of John Franklin and William Edward Parry , had sent a boat under Elson's leadership to explore this still unknown coast. Beechey named the Cape after its client, the British civil servant and later baronet Sir John Barrow .
During the International Polar Year 1882/83, the United States operated a scientific polar station here.
On April 22nd, 1928, the polar explorer Hubert Wilkins started with his pilot Carl Ben Eielson at Point Barrow on a transarctic flight to Spitsbergen . In August 1935, star comedian Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post had an accident in a plane crash at Point Barrow when the engine failed immediately after take-off.
Point Barrow was also a NASA rocket launch site that was used from 1965 to 1972 to launch the Nike Cajun and Nike Apache sounding rockets .
In October 1988, Operation Breakthrough took place in front of the headland , during which three gray whales trapped in the early pack ice with great media interest were to be freed by government agencies from various countries and international aid organizations. The two older animals survived the rescue effort, while the youngest animal died during it.
In September 2010, the shooting of the feature film The Call of the Whales with Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski in the leading roles began here on site and in the vicinity of Barrow , which retold this rescue operation.
literature
- John Murdoch: Ethnological results of the Point Barrow expedition. Ninth annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution , 1887-'88 / (Washington: Government Printing Office , 1892) ( digitized )
Web links
- Point Barrow in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cemetery is exposed by climate change engl.
- ↑ AF Kashevarov's coastal explorations in Northwest Alaska, 1838 (= Fieldiana Anthropology 69, No. 1), Field Museum of Natural History, 1977, p. 8 (English)
- ↑ Tom Rose: Freeing the Whales: How the Media Created the World's Greatest Non-Event . Carol Publishing Corporation, 1989, ISBN 978-1-55972-011-3 .
- ↑ Big Miracle - The Whale rescue which inspired The Mirror , online (English)