Arctic Alaska

Cities

• Ambler — a small Iñupiat village near a major archaeological site
• Anaktuvuk Pass
• Coldfoot — very small town, although an important stop with services on the Dalton Highway
• Deadhorse/Prudhoe Bay — town of oil operations at the northern end of Dalton Highway, just a few miles south of Arctic Ocean coast
• Elim
• Golovin
• Kaktovik — tiny native settlement, gateway to Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
• Kotzebue
• Nome — the major city on the Seward Peninsula with a population of about 4,000 people, about half of whom are Alaska natives. It is the transportation and commerce center for Northwest Alaska and the western terminus of the Iditarod Trail.
• Shaktoolik
• Solomon — small town between Nome and Council, along the Nome-Council Road and Iditarod Trail
• Teller
• Unalakleet — large town along the Iditarod Trail and Norton Sound
• Utqiaġvik (Barrow) — the northernmost town in the United States
• White Mountain
• Wiseman — small town 3 miles off Dalton Highway, with several historical buildings

Other destinations

• Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — accessible from Kaktovik
• Gates of the Arctic National Park — home to six wild and scenic rivers that offer opportunities for unparalleled wilderness experiences
• Little Diomede — the westernmost point of North America (Save for the Aleutian Islands) is a small island in the Bering Strait almost on the International Date Line
• Western Arctic National Parklands — Western Arctic National Parklands is a unit which includes:
• Bering Land Bridge National Preserve — during the Ice Age the people of Beringia were separated
• Cape Krusenstern National Monument — stretches 70 miles along the Chukchi Sea shoreline
• Kobuk Valley National Park — ancient arctic sand dunes and a sub-arctic river that traverses the boreal forest; this park harbors archeological sites more than 10,000 years old, and supports small communities of inland Inupiat peoples
• Noatak National Preserve — as one of North America's largest mountain-ringed river basins with an intact ecosystem, the Noatak River environs features some of the Arctic's finest arrays of plants and animals
• Bald Head Summit — a mountain on the north shore of Norton Bay, 35 mi NE of Elim
• Moses Point — a historic point at the mouth of Kwiniuk River on the north shore of Norton Bay, 8 mi northeast of Elim

Get in

By plane

The main method of arriving to Arctic Alaska is by air. Alaska Airlines offers almost daily commercial flights to the cities of Barrow (Utqiaġvik) (BRW), Deadhorse (SCC), Kotzebue (OTZ), Nome Airport (OME) while Ravn Air only offers service to Unalakleet from Anchorage (ANC). Additionally,Bering Air offers small turboprop services to additional towns/airstrips throughout the region, such as Anaktuvuk Pass Airport (AKP), Buckland Airport (BKC), Elim Airport (ELI), and Unalakeet (UNK) from Nome, Anchorage and each other in this region. Additional destinations in the area and to/from Canada, the lower 48, and the Russian Far East can be made on a chartered basis.

By car

See also: Tips for road trips and Winter driving.

• The Dalton Highway (SR-11) connects Deadhorse and the Prudhoe Bay oilfields with Fairbanks. The highway is one of only two roads across the Arctic Circle in North America and provides a unique experience, running through the Brooks Range, Atigun Pass, North Slope and Coastal Plain. The highway can be accessed via the Steese and Elliot highways from Fairbanks. There are no roads connecting between Prudhoe Bay to Utqiaġvik (Barrow) along the north coast or anywhere in the region.

By bus

Get around

Small planes, including ones with skis or pontoons, are the best way of accessing this remote and vast region. Most small towns have an airstrip or are located near a lake. Air travel in this region provides spectacular views of remote terrain and the only thing available to get around the vast distances of the region.

The Dalton Highway runs through the Brooks Range, North Slope, and Coastal Plain to Deadhorse. This road is a great way to view these remote areas without a plane. Additionally, several roads extend outward from Nome into surrounding areas.

Sled dogs may be used in wintery months, but the extreme cold of this region in the middle of the winter can be very treacherous. Most commonly, snowmachines are used to get from place to place in the long, dark winter of the Alaskan Arctic.