The Selawik River is about 140 miles (226 km) long, originating in the Purcell Mountains near the Zane Hills, and flows generally west through the Selawik National Wildlife Refuge to Selawik Lake that drains into Kotzebue Sound, about 65 miles (105 km) southeast of Kotzebue and 9 miles (14.5 km) west of the village of Selawik, Alaska. This area is a transition zone where the northernmost boreal forests give way to open Arctic tundra. About 21,000 lakes create a large Arctic tundra lake complex called the Kobuk-Selawik Lowlands. This lowland is characterized by broad river floodplains with numerous thaw lakes and ponds. Selawik is an Iñupiat community that straddles the Selawik River in a roadless coastal plain pitted with lakes. A series of bridges connects the otherwise isolated parts of the community to the village airport. The name was first reported in 1842 by Lieutenant Lavrenty A. Zagoskin, of the Imperial Russian Navy, who spelled it ‘Chilivik’. The Iñupiat name comes from the word ‘siilvik’, which means ‘place of sheefish’. It was first published on a British Admiralty chart in 1854, and may have originated with one of the search expeditions for Sir John Franklin. The topographic smoothness of the Kobuk-Selawik Lowlands probably reflects the presence of a thick wedge of unconsolidated Quaternary fill and permafrost beneath the river delta. This is underlain by Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous andesitic volcanic rocks and Early Cretaceous sedimentary rocks intruded by Cretaceous plutons. At certain times in prehistory, this area formed a land bridge called Beringia that was up to 620 miles (1,000 km) wide between continental North America and Siberia. A small human population, at most a few thousand people, crossed Beringia from eastern Siberia during the Last Glacial Maximum, before expanding into the settlement of the Americas sometime after 16,500 years ago. This would have occurred when continental ice sheets still blocked the route south but were retreating, and before the land bridge was submerged by rising sea levels about 11,000 years ago.

Before European contact, Hotham Inlet was an important trading center. From mid-July until late August many boatloads of Iñupiat from the Noatak, Kobuk and Selawik rivers travelled to Hotham Inlet, where they met people from Shishmaref, Cape Prince of Wales, Diomede Islands, King Island, and Siberia. Inland Iñupiat brought furs, dried fish, jade and other interior products to trade for sealskins, seal oil and other coastal goods. By the mid-17th century Russians had penetrated north-eastern Siberia; thereafter, European goods began to flow into Alaska from the Chukchi and the Siberian Yup’ik by way of the Diomede Islands and Cape Prince of Wales. As early as the beginning of the 18th century these latter people became middlemen in thriving intercontinental trade, and Hotham Inlet became an important distribution center for all of north-west Alaska. In 1826 Europeans arrived, beginning with Captain Frederick W. Beechey on HMS Blossom. Beechey was tasked with exploring the Bering Strait in concert with Sir John Franklin, who explored from the east to find a navigable passage through the Arctic. After 1850 whaling ships began to frequent the Arctic Ocean in large numbers every summer, and inland and coastal Iñupiat traded with these vessels as well as with each other. In 1883 Lieutenant George M. Stoney of the U.S. Navy was detailed to the U.S. Revenue Cutter Thomas Corwin, a ship that had been cruising in the Arctic Ocean each summer since 1880 to protect American whaling interests and to prevent the illicit sale of liquor to the Iñupiat. The officers of the Corwin were also supposed to enforce the law prohibiting the sale of breech-loading arms and ammunition to the Iñupiat—a source of hardship, as many had purchased rifles before the law was enacted and could no longer obtain ammunition. Stoney explored the Kobuk-Selawik Lowlands during the summers of 1884 and 1885, and stayed through the winter of 1885–86 to explore the interior east of Kotzebue Sound. In 1980 Selawik National Wildlife Refuge was created by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, covering about 2.15 million acres (849,858 ha). The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 conveyed around 363,000 acres (147,000 ha) of this land to Alaska Native village corporations.

The Iñupiat way of life is rooted in subsistence traditions, with many people in the area relying on local natural resources for much of their food and income. Subsistence here also involves cultural identity, strong values, family traditions, self-reliance, spirituality, personal and community health, traditional knowledge and skills, and a close connection with time, place and the natural world. Sheefish, other whitefish, salmon, grayling, northern pike, caribou, moose, seals, small game and abundant migratory birds are major subsistence resources. Although Pacific salmon have been documented in the drainage, they are not abundant, so residents depend more on other fish, including northern pike, burbot and several whitefish species. Five whitefish species occur in the Selawik River drainage. Sheefish (inconnu), broad whitefish, and humpback whitefish are relatively large and widely targeted in subsistence fisheries; least cisco and round whitefish are smaller and less significant. All whitefish species are anadromous broadcast spawners, spawning in late autumn in flowing water over gravel. Eggs drift downstream and settle among gravel spaces; they develop through the winter, hatch in spring and emerge into the water column just as spring and early-summer flows swell the waterways. Tiny juveniles are carried downstream to varied, often random destinations, including backwaters, off-channel lakes and estuaries. After growing for several years, young whitefish mature and prepare to spawn. From midsummer onwards, they migrate upstream to known spawning sites each year, suggesting high fidelity to natal areas. After spawning, mature fish retreat downstream to overwintering sites and eventually move on to feeding areas by the following spring. Most whitefish species are thought to spawn every other year or even less frequently. Read more here and here. Explore more of the Selawik River and Kotzebue Sound here: