Hooper Bay is a Central Yup’ik community on the northern shore of the bay of the same name in the Bering Sea, between Dall Point to the north and Nuok Spit to the south, about 154 miles (248 km) west-northwest of Bethel and 28 miles (45 km) south-southwest of Scammon Bay, Alaska. The village sits on the low coastal plain of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta where wind and waves are reshaping dunes and a southward-extending spit. Residents call the village Naparyarmiut, which had 1,375 residents at the 2020 census, up from 1,093 in 2010. In 1878, Edward W. Nelson of the U.S. Army Signal Corps recorded the village as Askinuk and named the bay for Calvin L. Hooper, captain of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Thomas Corwin. Hooper later helped found the Bering Sea Patrol. A post office opened in 1934 under the bay’s name, which the village has used since. Several smaller villages nearby no longer exist, among them Paimiut, meaning “people of the stream’s mouth.” Paimiut is now a summer fish camp about 15 miles (24 km) north-northeast in Kokechik Bay.

Commercial fishing and subsistence activities are fundamental to the economy and lifestyle of residents. Hooper Bay has a subsistence-based economy and serves as a hub for nearby villages such as Chevak and Scammon Bay. Subsistence requires mobility, as families move between seasonal camps to follow fish, seals and birds. In winter, hunters travel far onto the sea ice for seals, and a failed hunt could once mean starvation. Eider ducks and emperor geese are important in spring and fall. Salmon are caught from late May to mid-July, mostly Yukon River Chinook, chum and pink salmon, as well as chum from Kotzebue Sound and Norton Sound. In the local dialect, the language and the people are both called Cup’ik. The ancestral Yup’ik of the area included the Nuvugmiut, Miluqautmiut and Nenerrlugarmiut, who fought in the Bow and Arrow War, a long conflict among Yup’ik of the Bering Sea coast south of the Yukon River and riverine Yup’ik along the Yukon and at Pastol Bay on Norton Sound. Groups banded together for defense and raids, and the fighting waned after Russian traders arrived in the 1830s and 1840s. Oral histories, such as the story of “The Giant Footprints,” remain part of village life, and this shared history still links the present-day neighboring villages.

Western Alaska comprises numerous isolated rural communities along an extensive coastline, where storm surges can raise sea levels well above normal. Storms tend to strike in fall or winter, when temperatures are below freezing and daylight is scarce, compounding hardship in the aftermath. Sea ice can blunt surges, but its rapid decline has left coastal communities exposed for longer than the historical record shows. Even smaller, more frequent storms now cause significant flooding and erosion, though flood history is poorly documented. Land use is dictated largely by permafrost, drainage problems, loss of sea ice, wind direction, and the potential for erosion and shoreline change. A 1990s survey reportedly found an extensive, continuous layer of permafrost beneath the area. Erosion is ongoing; between 2013 and 2015, dunes near the village eroded about 65 feet (20 m) landward at one point, and a 2021 state assessment estimated erosion exposure for local infrastructure. Village elders report that the climate is warming, that permafrost is thawing, and that land is subsiding, leading to more frequent flooding and erosion. Read more here and here. Explore more of Hooper Bay and the Bering Sea here: