Rabbit Creek rises in the Mulgrave Hills and flows 23 miles (37 km) southwest through the File Mountains, also called the Tahinichok Mountains, to the Chukchi Sea at the southern end of Imik Lagoon in Cape Krusenstern National Monument, about 96 miles (155 km) southeast of Point Hope and 53 miles (85 km) northwest of Kotzebue, Alaska. The name is a translation of the Iñupiaq word Ukalliqsuq, which refers to arctic hares that inhabit the upper watershed. Local bedrock is limestone, dolomite, phyllite and chert, laid down from the Precambrian to the Devonian, and longshore currents have built beach ridges along the coast over roughly the past 5,000 years. Chert from the creek may have been used to make tools found at nearby archaeological sites. The creek is a spawning stream for Dolly Varden trout and sees limited, occasional spawning by chum and coho salmon. A seasonal lagoon forms at its mouth when a barrier beach blocks the outlet.

Coastal lagoons in northwestern Alaska differ in how freely they exchange water with Kotzebue Sound and the Chukchi Sea. Some, such as Kivalina Lagoon, are open year-round. Others, including Imik Lagoon, the lagoon at the mouth of Rabbit Creek and Krusenstern Lagoon, are open for only part of the year, and a few, such as Aukulak Lagoon, can stay closed all summer. Storm surges driven by strong westerly winds, common in summer and early winter, can push seawater into even closed lagoons. Salinity and oxygen levels swing widely under winter ice, and only some lagoons, such as Krusenstern, are thought to offer overwintering habitat for fish. People have used this coast for up to 9,000 years, and Iñupiat heritage here spans about 5,000 of them, preserved in the 114 beach ridges at Cape Krusenstern.

The lagoons provide important habitat for humpback whitefish and for the birds and mammals that Iñupiaq families hunt for food. Some humpback whitefish populations are anadromous, spending part of their lives in the ocean and part in fresh water. Juveniles rear in lagoons, estuaries and near river mouths. Adults travel upriver to spawn, in some rivers for hundreds of miles, but those in the lagoons seem to leave before freeze-up, probably to overwinter in rivers. In the early 20th century the Alaska Road Commission built shelter cabins along the winter mail trail between Kotzebue and Point Barrow, which followed the coast until aircraft replaced dog teams. Two survive in the monument, the Tukrok and Aitiligauraq cabins, but they have deteriorated and the Park Service has no plans to preserve them. The monument, proclaimed in 1978 and managed from Kotzebue, is roadless and has no visitor facilities, and local residents still hunt and fish there under federal subsistence protections. Read more here and here. Explore more of Rabbit Creek and Imik Lagoon here: