Shaktoolik is a small community on a spit forming Shaktoolik Bay, on the eastern shore of Norton Sound, about 56 miles (90 km) southeast of Golovin and 35 miles (56 km) north-northwest of Unalakleet, Alaska. The bay is a lagoon roughly 22 miles (35 km) southwest of Christmas Mountain, fed by the Shaktoolik River, which flows 92 miles (148 km) from the Nulato Hills. The name derives from the Malemiut word for the bay, first recorded on September 16, 1778, by Captain James Cook of the Royal Navy as “Chacktoole Bay,” and rendered as “Shakhtolik” in 1842 by Lieutenant Lavrenty A. Zagoskin of the Imperial Russian Navy. Cook named Norton Sound after Sir Fletcher Norton, then Speaker of the British House of Commons. Norton Sound is an inlet of the Bering Sea bounded to the north by the Seward Peninsula; the Yukon River delta forms part of its southern shore, and discharge from the Yukon strongly influences the salinity of the sound. Norton Sound is ice-covered from November to May.

The Norton Sound area has been home to Yup’ik and Iñupiat peoples for centuries. The embayment represents an environmental and cultural transition zone between northwestern and southwestern Alaska, sitting at the boundary between Pacific and Arctic influences and supporting a mixture of boreal and arctic flora and fauna. It marks the northern limit of strong Pacific salmon runs; north of the Seward Peninsula, runs diminish in strength and duration and involve fewer overlapping species. Large baleen whales, by contrast, are infrequent visitors. Culturally, Norton Sound lies on the historical interface between Iñupiaq- and Yup’ik-speaking peoples. Faunal remains from an archaeological midden at a large precolonial village site indicate two distinct cultural phases from AD 1280 to the mid-1800s: the Nukleet phase, a regional variant of the Western Thule culture, and three chronological periods associated with precolonial Yup’ik occupation. Shaktoolik was the first Malemiut settlement on Norton Sound, occupied as early as 1839.

Reindeer herding began in the Shaktoolik area around 1905, when the village stood about 6 miles (10 km) up the Shaktoolik River. It moved to the river’s mouth in 1933 to improve sea access, then relocated again in 1975 because of flooding and erosion. Today Shaktoolik has about 250 residents—descendants of Unalit (Yup’ik) and Malemiut (Iñupiat) peoples—on a sand spit bordered by the Tagoomenik River to the east and Norton Sound to the west. The economy rests on subsistence, supplemented by part-time wages in commercial fishing, local government, and education. Reindeer herding still yields some income and meat, but the primary subsistence foods are fish, crab, moose, beluga whale, caribou, seals, and birds. Shaktoolik is among several Alaskan coastal communities threatened by erosion and flooding driven by a longer ice-free season and more frequent and intense Bering Sea storms. Later freeze-up each fall delays the formation of shore ice, which historically buffered the village against November storms. Without that ice, the community is more vulnerable to wave damage and storm surges. Recent storms have eroded the former village site, damaged utilities and septic drainage fields at the current site, and pushed driftwood to within a few feet of seaward-facing buildings—yet the surge heights recorded remain well below those projected for the future. Read more here and here. Explore more of Shaktoolik and Norton Sound here: