Cross Island is an Arctic barrier island on the Beaufort Sea coast, located about 74 miles (119 km) northeast of Nuiqsut and 24 miles (40 km) north-northeast of Deadhorse, Alaska. The island is approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) long and situated between the McClure Islands to the southeast and the Midway Islands to the west. The Beaufort Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean, is bordered to the south by Alaska in the United States and the Northwest Territories and Yukon in Canada, and to the east by the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The sea was named after Sir Francis Beaufort, a Royal Navy officer and hydrographer for the British Admiralty. Cross Island received its name in 1889 from Captain Charles H. Stockton of the U.S. Navy, who noted that “the island, though nameless, was marked by a wooden cross, from which fact it was called Cross Island.”

The continental shelf under the Beaufort Sea contains significant petroleum and natural gas prospects discovered between the 1950s and 1980s. The shallow waters also support traditional fishing, as well as whale and seal hunting, practiced by 11 Alaska Native villages. These communities hunt bowhead whales during the spring and fall migrations. Cross Island, where bowhead whale jawbones are lined up near a whaling camp, is a site for subsistence whaling, particularly by the Iñupiat residents of Nuiqsut. This village was established in 1973 by residents from Utqiaġvik (Barrow). The residents continue to uphold native traditions such as hunting (including whale, caribou, fox, and ptarmigan) and making native clothes and crafts. However, modern society has somewhat diminished the need and interest in these activities. The traditional whale hunted by the villagers is the bowhead.

The bowhead whale is the only baleen whale to spend its entire life in Arctic and sub-Arctic waters. These whales migrate between summer and winter habitats, following sea ice as it expands and recedes. Typically, bowhead whales migrate alone or in small groups, with mothers and calves traveling separately. The Alaskan population winters in the southwestern Bering Sea and migrates north in spring, following ice openings into the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. Due to rising temperatures and decreasing sea ice, bowhead migration patterns are changing, including a northward shift in feeding grounds. This shift may drive the whales farther offshore, potentially conflicting with shipping traffic and affecting whaling communities. Read more here and here. Explore more of Cross Island and the Beaufort Sea here: