The Bering Strait's technical name is
Imakpik.
The
Bering Strait is a sea
straitA strait or straits is a narrow, navigable channel of water that connects two larger navigable bodies of water. It most commonly refers to a channel of water that lies between two land masses, but it may also refer to a navigable channel through a body of water that is otherwise not navigable, for...
between
Cape DezhnevCape Dezhnyov or Cape Dezhnev is a cape that forms the easternmost mainland point of Eurasia, on the Chukchi Peninsula in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of Russia. It is located between the Bering Sea and the Chukchi Sea, 82 km across from Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska...
,
Chukotka Autonomous OkrugChukotka Autonomous Okrug Chukotka Autonomous Okrug Chukotka Autonomous Okrug , is a federal subject of Russia (an autonomous okrug) located in the Far Eastern Federal...
, the easternmost point (169°43' W) of the
AsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.6% of the earth's total surface area and with approximately 4 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population.Asia is traditionally defined as part of the...
n continent and
Cape Prince of WalesCape Prince of Wales is the westernmost point on the mainland of the Americas.Located on the Seward Peninsula of the U.S. state of Alaska near the city of Wales, Cape Prince of Wales is the terminus of the Continental Divide, marking the division between the Pacific and Arctic coasts, as well as...
,
AlaskaAlaska is the largest state of the United States of America by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, the westernmost point (168°05' W) of the North American continent, with
latitudeLatitude, usually denoted by the Greek letter phi gives the location of a place on Earth north or south of the equator. Lines of Latitude are the imaginary horizontal lines shown running east-to-west on maps that run either north or south of the equator...
of about 65° 40' north, slightly south of the
polar circleA polar circle is either the Arctic Circle or the Antarctic Circle. On Earth, the Arctic Circle is located at a latitude of 66˚ 33' 38" N, and the Antarctic Circle is located at a latitude of 66˚ 33' 38" S...
. It is one of the biggest of its kind.
The Bering Strait has been the subject of scientific speculation that humans migrated from Asia to the North American continent across a land bridge formed by lower ocean levels in the distant past exposing a ridge beneath the ocean.
The Bering Strait's technical name is
Imakpik.
The
Bering Strait is a sea
straitA strait or straits is a narrow, navigable channel of water that connects two larger navigable bodies of water. It most commonly refers to a channel of water that lies between two land masses, but it may also refer to a navigable channel through a body of water that is otherwise not navigable, for...
between
Cape DezhnevCape Dezhnyov or Cape Dezhnev is a cape that forms the easternmost mainland point of Eurasia, on the Chukchi Peninsula in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of Russia. It is located between the Bering Sea and the Chukchi Sea, 82 km across from Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska...
,
Chukotka Autonomous OkrugChukotka Autonomous Okrug Chukotka Autonomous Okrug Chukotka Autonomous Okrug , is a federal subject of Russia (an autonomous okrug) located in the Far Eastern Federal...
, the easternmost point (169°43' W) of the
AsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.6% of the earth's total surface area and with approximately 4 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population.Asia is traditionally defined as part of the...
n continent and
Cape Prince of WalesCape Prince of Wales is the westernmost point on the mainland of the Americas.Located on the Seward Peninsula of the U.S. state of Alaska near the city of Wales, Cape Prince of Wales is the terminus of the Continental Divide, marking the division between the Pacific and Arctic coasts, as well as...
,
AlaskaAlaska is the largest state of the United States of America by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, the westernmost point (168°05' W) of the North American continent, with
latitudeLatitude, usually denoted by the Greek letter phi gives the location of a place on Earth north or south of the equator. Lines of Latitude are the imaginary horizontal lines shown running east-to-west on maps that run either north or south of the equator...
of about 65° 40' north, slightly south of the
polar circleA polar circle is either the Arctic Circle or the Antarctic Circle. On Earth, the Arctic Circle is located at a latitude of 66˚ 33' 38" N, and the Antarctic Circle is located at a latitude of 66˚ 33' 38" S...
. It is one of the biggest of its kind.
The Bering Strait has been the subject of scientific speculation that humans migrated from Asia to the North American continent across a land bridge formed by lower ocean levels in the distant past exposing a ridge beneath the ocean. At periods when the oceans were lower, such as when glaciers locked up vast amounts of water, the exposed ridge would have allowed humans to simply walk from Siberia to Alaska, thus populating North and South America thousands of years ago.
Geography and science
The Bering Strait is approximately long, with an average depth of . It connects the
Chukchi SeaChukchi Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is bounded on the west by the De Long Strait, off Wrangel Island, and in the east by Point Barrow, Alaska, beyond which lies the Beaufort Sea...
(part of the
Arctic OceanThe Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest, and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions.
The International Hydrographic Organization recognizes it as an ocean, although some...
) in the north with the
Bering SeaThe Bering Sea is a body of water in the Pacific Ocean that comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves....
(part of the
Pacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Tepre Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. It extends from the Arctic in the north to Antarctica in the south, bounded by Asia and...
) in the south. Although the Cossack
Semyon Dezhnevright|thumb|Bering Strait and the Anadyr River. The mouth of the Kolyma is the vertical line on the Arctic coastSemyon Ivanovich Dezhnyov was a Russian explorer of Siberia and the first European to sail through the Bering Strait. In 1648 he sailed from the Kolyma River on the Arctic Ocean to the...
passed by the strait in 1648, it is named after
Vitus BeringVitus Jonassen Bering was a Danish navigator in the service of the Russian Navy, a captain-komandor known among the Russian sailors as Ivan Ivanovich...
, a
DanishDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
-born Russian explorer who crossed the strait in 1728. Although considered as incorrect spelling today the area is often found spelled as "Behring Strait" in some older texts.
Population
The area is sparsely populated. The
Diomede IslandsThe Diomede Islands , also known in Russia as Gvozdev Islands , consist of two rocky, tuya-like islands: the U.S...
lie directly in the middle of the Bering Strait, and the village in Little Diomede has a school which is part of Alaska's
Bering Strait School DistrictBering Strait School District is a school district in northwestern Alaska, United States, serving approximately 1,700 students in grades K-12 in fifteen isolated villages...
. Because the
International Date LineThe International Date Line is an imaginary line on the surface of the Earth opposite the Prime Meridian where the date changes as one travels east or west across it...
runs equidistant between the islands at a distance of 1 mi (1.6 km), the Russian and American sides are counted as falling on different calendar days, with Cape Dezhnev 21 hours ahead of the American side.
The area in the immediate neigborhood on the Alaskan side belongs to the Nome Census Area which has a population of 9,000 people. There is no road from the Bering Strait to the main cities of Alaska. Air and water are the main mode of travel. There are a few roads around
NomeNome is a city in the Nome Census Area of the U.S. state of Alaska, located on the southern Seward Peninsula coast on Norton Sound of the Bering Sea. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the city population was 3,590. Nome was incorporated on April 9, 1901, and was once the most populous...
. However there is no regular air connection across the strait, just a few summer charter flights. This is because of a Russian policy only to allow tourists in organized tours, and with special permit to everyone.
The Russian coast belongs to
Chukotka Autonomous OkrugChukotka Autonomous Okrug Chukotka Autonomous Okrug Chukotka Autonomous Okrug , is a federal subject of Russia (an autonomous okrug) located in the Far Eastern Federal...
.
ProvideniyaProvideniya is an urban-type settlement situated on Komsomolskaya Bay, part of Provideniya Bay in the northeastern part of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. It is located across the Bering Strait from Alaska, and is very close to the International Date Line. The town is served by Provideniya...
(4,500 people) and
ChukotskyChukotsky , Chukotskaya , or Chukotskoye may refer to:*Chukotka Autonomous Okrug , a federal subject of Russia*Chukotsky District, a district of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia...
(5,200 people) are the two areas located at the Bering Strait. These areas are also roadless.
Expeditions
Semyon Dezhnyov (1648) was the first European to pass through the Bering Strait.
Vitus BeringVitus Jonassen Bering was a Danish navigator in the service of the Russian Navy, a captain-komandor known among the Russian sailors as Ivan Ivanovich...
entered it in 1728.
Adolf Erik NordenskiöldBaron Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld , also known as A. E. Nordenskioeld was a Finnish geologist, mineralogist and arctic explorer, and a member of the prominent Finland-Swedish Nordenskiöld family of scientists...
in 1878/79 sailed along the complete northern coast of Siberia, thereby proving that there was no northern land bridge from Asia to North America.
In July 1989 a British Expedition,
Kayaks Across The Bering Strait, completed the first sea kayak crossing of the Bering Strait from Wales, in Alaska, to Cape Dezhneva, Siberia. The four expedition members, Robert Egelstaff, Trevor Potts, Greg Barton and Peter Clark, kayaked from Nome up the Alaskan coast, round Cape Prince of Wales before crossing the Strait via the Diomede Islands. Having completed the crossing they continued north to Uelen, where they were welcomed by the Soviet Sports Committee and eventually returned to the UK via Moscow. This journey has been described as "The Everest of the Canoeing World" and was recorded in the film "Kayaking Into Tomorrow" (1989). There was a film called "Curtain of Ice" that recorded part of the crossing.
In 1998, Russian adventurer
Dmitry ShparoDmitry Shparo is a Russian Arctic explorer and holder of several endurance records. Shparo gained international fame for twice reaching the North Pole on skis. Reports credit him with leading more expeditions to the polar region than any other explorer...
and his son Matvey made the first known modern crossing of the frozen Bering Strait on skis.
In March 2006 Briton
Karl BushbyKarl Bushby is a British ex-paratrooper, walking adventurer and author, currently attempting to be the first person to completely walk an unbroken path around the world. Bushby's trek is known as the Goliath Expedition.-Early life:...
and French American adventurer Dimitri Kieffer crossed the strait on foot, walking across a frozen 90 km (56 mile) section in 15 days.
(BBC) (although they were soon arrested for not entering Russia through a border control.)
Actor
Ewan McGregorEwan Gordon McGregor is a Scottish actor, singer, and adventurer who has had success in mainstream, indie and art house films...
said in an interview on
The Tonight Show with Jay LenoThe Tonight Show with Jay Leno is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jay Leno, on NBC. It made its debut on May 25, 1992, following Johnny Carson's retirement as host of The Tonight Show. The nightly broadcast at 11:35 p.m. originated from NBC's studios, in Burbank, California and ran...
that part of the inspiration for his
Long Way RoundLong Way Round is a documentary television series, DVD set and book documenting the journey of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman from London to New York on motorcycles...
motorcycle journey from London to New York was that, when viewed on a map, the gap between Russia and the USA across the Bering Strait was in fact very small. McGregor and his team ultimately crossed the strait with their motorcycles loaded onto a Magadan Airlines plane, flying from
MagadanMagadan is a port town on the Sea of Okhotsk and gateway to the Kolyma region. It is the administrative center of Magadan Oblast , in the Russian Far East. Founded in 1929 on the site of an earlier settlement from the 1920s, it was granted the status of town in 1939...
, Russia to
AnchorageAnchorage is a consolidated city-borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. With an estimated 279,243 municipal residents in 2008 , it is Alaska's largest city and constitutes more than 40 percent of the state's total population; only New York has a higher percentage...
, Alaska.
In 1987 swimmer
Lynne CoxLynne Cox is an American long-distance open-water swimmer and writer. In 1971, she and her teammates were the first group of teenagers to complete the crossing of the Catalina Island Channel in California. She was always the slowest swimmer in her swim classes...
swam the two miles (3 km) between the
Diomede IslandsThe Diomede Islands , also known in Russia as Gvozdev Islands , consist of two rocky, tuya-like islands: the U.S...
from Alaska to the Soviet Union in 40 °F (+4 °C) water during the last years of the Cold War.
August 2008 marked the first ever crossing of the Bering Strait using an amphibious road going vehicle. The specially modified Land Rover Defender 110 converted to amphibious use by Protection and Performance (www.ppcages.com) was driven by Steve Burgess and Dan Evans across the straits on its second attempt following the interruption of the first one due to bad weather. The full story can be found here: http://www.capetocape.org.uk/
Bridge or tunnel
In 1864 the Russian-American telegraph company began preparations for a telegraph line to link Europe and America overland via the Bering Strait, but this was abandoned when the Atlantic Cable proved successful.
Suggestions have been made for the construction of a
bridgeA bridge is a structure built to span a valley, road, body of water, or other physical obstacle, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle. Designs of bridges vary depending on the function of the bridge and the nature of the terrain where the bridge is constructed.-History:The first...
, the
Bering Strait bridgeA Bering Strait crossing is a hypothetical bridge or tunnel spanning the Bering Strait between Cape Dezhnev, Chukotka, Russia, and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, United States. The bridge or tunnel would provide an overland connection linking Asia, Africa and Europe with North America and South...
, between
AlaskaAlaska is the largest state of the United States of America by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
and
SiberiaSiberia , is the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the USSR from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the...
. An alternative connection would be a
tunnelA tunnel is an underground passageway. The definition of what constitutes a tunnel is not universally agreed upon. However, in general tunnels are at least twice as long as they are wide. In addition, they should be completely enclosed on all sides, save for the openings at each end...
underneath the strait, the TKM-World Link being the most recent such proposal. The construction of such a bridge or tunnel would face unprecedented engineering, political, and financial challenges, and to date, no government has authorized the start of any planning or construction.
Dam or threshold
In September 2008 a plan was published discussing a complete or partial close off of the Bering Strait, either by building a dam or a threshold, both possibly influencing sea ice conditions in the
ArcticThe Arctic is the region around the Earth's North Pole, opposite the Antarctic region around the South Pole. The Arctic includes the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Greenland , Russia, the United States , Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland.The word Arctic comes from the Greek αρκτικός , "near...
. The proposed
Diomede Threshold would make use of the
salinitySalinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water. It is a general term used to describe the levels of different salts such as sodium chloride, magnesium and calcium sulfates, and bicarbonates...
gradient of water currents through the Bering Strait, allowing only relatively sweet waters from the Alaskan river
YukonYukon , or The Yukon, is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River, Yukon meaning "Great River" in Gwich’in....
to flow through the strait.
The "Ice Curtain" border
During the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
, the Bering Strait marked the border between the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
. The island of
Big DiomedeThe Diomede Islands , also known in Russia as Gvozdev Islands , consist of two rocky, tuya-like islands: the U.S...
in the USSR was (and is) only 2.4 mi (4 km) from the island of Little Diomede in the USA. Traditionally, the indigenous peoples in the area had frequently crossed the border back and forth for "routine visits, seasonal festivals and subsistence trade", but were prevented from doing so during the Cold War. The border became known as the "Ice Curtain". In 1987, American swimmer
Lynne CoxLynne Cox is an American long-distance open-water swimmer and writer. In 1971, she and her teammates were the first group of teenagers to complete the crossing of the Catalina Island Channel in California. She was always the slowest swimmer in her swim classes...
symbolically helped ease tensions between the two countries by swimming across the border and was congratulated jointly by
Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States and the 33rd Governor of California .Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s...
and
Mikhail GorbachevMikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was the second-to-last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, serving from 1985 until 1991, and the last head of state of the USSR, serving from 1988 until its collapse in 1991...
.