Cape Lewis is a 1,222-foot (372 m) promontory with steep sea cliffs situated between Ukinyak Creek to the north and Kiliktakgot Creek to the south, 11 miles (18 km) south of Cape Lisburne on the Lisburne Peninsula, about 107 miles (172 km) southwest of Point Lay and 27 miles (44 km) north-northeast of Point Hope, Alaska. The Iñupiat traditionally gather murre eggs from these sea cliffs in late June and early July. Their name for the cape is ‘Irinik,’ meaning ‘falling rocks.’ First mapped in 1826 by Frederick W. Beechey on the HMS Blossom, Cape Lewis was named for Charles Lewis during the British Naval Exploring Expedition. Ukinyak Creek flows southwest for 8 miles (13 km), and Kiliktakgot Creek flows west for 3 miles (5 km), both draining watersheds on the west flank of the Lisburne Hills in the Alaska Maritime Wildlife Refuge. The sea cliffs of Cape Lewis belong to the Lisburne Group, a Paleozoic formation widely distributed across northern Alaska. This group includes coal-bearing shales with abundant fossilized plants and coral, overlain by thinly bedded limestones, black cherts and slates, which in turn are capped by massive limestones.

Cape Lewis is part of the Ann Stevens-Cape Lisburne Subunit within the Chukchi Sea Unit of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. The Cape Lisburne Subunit supports a large seabird colony, including breeding populations of common and thick-billed murres and black-legged kittiwakes. Studies of the Cape Lisburne nesting colony were first conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from 1976 to 1983. Smaller-scale studies continued from 1984 to 1998 and were later incorporated into the Refuge seabird monitoring program, which covers 10 sites spaced roughly 200 to 300 miles (300 to 500 km) apart. In 2017, the Cape Lisburne Subunit’s seabird colony was estimated at 400,000 to 500,000 murres, 20,000 to 30,000 black-legged kittiwakes, and a few thousand pelagic cormorants, glaucous gulls, black guillemots, parakeet auklets, and horned and tufted puffins. These birds feed on large schools of sand lance that appear in the nearshore surface waters around Cape Lisburne in mid-July, coinciding with the hatching of kittiwake eggs.

The Chukchi Sea is a shallow body of water overlying the broad continental shelf between northwestern Alaska and northeastern Siberia. Its average depth is about 164 feet (50 meters), and tides along the eastern side average less than 1 foot (30 centimeters). Sea ice begins forming in October, and open water becomes severely restricted by January or February. A combination of northward-flowing currents and strong surface winds maintains a large, dynamic lead—sometimes called the Chukchi Polynya—between the Bering Strait and the Point Barrow area throughout winter. This open water serves as an important spring migration route for large numbers of marine birds and mammals. In most years, ice cover begins breaking up by mid-June. The Chukchi Sea is also strongly influenced by Pacific Ocean waters transported northward seasonally by the Alaska Coastal Current. When Alaska Coastal Water development is strong and nearshore temperatures rise sufficiently, zooplankton abundance increases, leading to a surge in sand lance populations. This, in turn, significantly improves kittiwake productivity. However, if seasonal development of Alaska Coastal Water is weak and nearshore environments remain cold, strong inshore and alongshore fish runs either fail to materialize or are delayed, making it difficult for surface-feeding kittiwakes to find food and fledge chicks. Read more here and here. Explore more of Cape Lewis and Lisburne Peninsula here: