Kotlik is a Yup’ik community on the banks of the Kotlik and Little Kotlik rivers, where they meet near Apoon Pass in the Yukon River Delta, about five miles (8 km) inland from the southern coast of Norton Sound, 116 miles (187 km) southeast of Nome and 56 miles (90 km) southwest of St. Michael, Alaska. Apoon Pass, the principal distributary across the northern delta, is the main navigational channel linking villages on the lower Yukon River to Norton Sound. The name ‘Apoon’ comes from the Yup’ik language for ‘thumb’ and reputedly describes the channel’s position when the delta is compared to a hand. The community sits on a low, flat alluvial plain of silts and sands, much of it near sea level. Its terrain is gently rolling to level, with low terraces, broad shallow depressions and swampy floodplains typical of the surrounding landscape. The ground is poorly drained since elevations are too low for runoff to clear the town, and groundwater sits close to the surface. The soils are stratified silts and sandy lacustrine or alluvial deposits that are ice-rich and highly frost-susceptible. Permafrost was not found in shallow borings, but the active layer, the surface zone that thaws each summer, ranges from one to three feet deep. Tides have a diurnal range of about four feet (1.2 m), but winds over the Bering Sea and Norton Sound can overwhelm them, and the community floods during intense autumn storms when high tides coincide.

A Russian Orthodox church was built at Kotlik shortly after Redoubt St. Michael was founded in 1833 by traders of the Russian-American Company. A few Russians intermarried with Native women and their offspring became traders with fluency in Russian and Yup’ik. Following the Alaska Purchase in 1867, a fox or mink fur farm was established at Kotlik. The Russian-American Company trading post at the neighboring village of Hamilton was taken over by the Northern Commercial Company, which later became the Alaska Commercial Company. Its trading posts bought furs and salmon from local hunters and fishermen and extended credit for store goods. The Klondike Gold Rush of 1897–1899 boosted commerce on the lower Yukon. In the 1950s and 1960s, residents of nearby settlements, including Chaniliut, Hamilton, Pastolik and Bill Moores Slough, moved to Kotlik, where the Bureau of Indian Affairs had built a school. Easy access for large riverboats and barges made Kotlik one of the larger ports and commercial centers on the lower Yukon, although it has no roads. Its Central Yupik name is Qerrulliik, and Native residents are shareholders in the Kotlik Yupik Corporation, formed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Salmon fishing, which runs from June through August, has long been the mainstay of the local economy.

Erosion at Kotlik occurs along approximately 3,000 feet (915 m) of riverbank centered in the vicinity of the confluence of the Kotlik River, Little Kotlik River and Apoon Pass. State researchers have measured rates of one to 2.3 feet (0.3–0.7 m) a year from 1951 to 2015, a process that has widened the river and undermined infrastructure. Permafrost thaw, flooding, river processes and boat wakes are cited as causes. Engineering studies found that ice-breakup floods and river currents contribute little, and that in 1986 boat wakes were about three times as damaging as wind waves. A concrete mat revetment covering about 2,100 feet (640 m) of waterfront went in during October 1986. The same study warned it would eventually fail because of improper grade preparation, and a 2017 field survey found it in disrepair. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported in 2008 that repeated protection efforts had not effectively stopped erosion. In 2021 the state estimated that erosion could expose 42 residences, the Alaska Commercial Company store and other buildings by 2075, at a replacement cost of $27.7 million. Today, Kotlik has 655 residents, according to the 2020 census. A state list of current projects includes lidar mapping, a flood-inundation risk assessment and a proposed cost-benefit analysis of protecting the community in place versus relocating it. Read more here and here. Explore more of Kotlik and Apoon Pass here: