Nuiqsut, AK

Nuiqsut sits on the Colville River delta in Alaska's North Slope Borough, on the Nechelik Channel about 35 miles from the Beaufort Sea coast. The 2020 census counted 616 residents. In 1974, twenty-seven families from Utqiagvik moved overland to the area, and the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation funded construction of the new village. Nuiqsut incorporated as a second-class city in 1975. The village is also near major oil activity, including the Alpine field and the Willow project, which brings an industrial presence to a community whose older geography is organized around river channels and seasonal travel.

ATTRJeroen Stroes Aviation Photography from Netherlands / CC BY 2.0

Subsistence remains central to local routines. North Slope Borough describes hunting, fishing, and whaling as the foundation of Nuiqsut's economy, with bowhead whales, caribou, seals, waterfowl, and several fish species among the area's fish and wildlife. Nuiqsut Trapper School serves preschool through grade 12 and doubles as a social meeting place for many community functions. The village's location on the Colville system makes the school, air access, boats, snow machines, and seasonal routes part of the same local map. Nuiqsut is a modern city with a long relationship to the river delta and the animals that move through it.