Cape Thompson, Alaska

Cape Thompson is a landhead in the Chukchi Sea coast of Alaska. It is located 26 miles to the southeast of Point Hope, Arctic Slope.

Early Inuit names for this cape were "Eebrulikgorruk" and "Uivaq", also spelled "Wevuk" or "Wevok." Cape Thompson was often referred to as "Unvaq Qanitoq," meaning "near cape," as opposed to "Univaq Ungasiktoq" (Cape Lisburne) meaning "distant cape."

The first recorded Europeans to sight this cape were Russian explorers Mikhail Vasiliev and Gleb Shishmaryov of the Imperial Russian Navy on ships "Otkrietie" and "Blagonamierennie". Vasiliev and Shishmaryov named this landhead Mys Rikord, after Peter Ivanovich Rikord (1776-1855), who was Governor of Kamchatka between 1817 and 1822.

This cape was later renamed by Captain Frederick William Beechey of the Royal Navy, who wrote on August 2, 1826: "We closed with a high cape, which I named after Mr. Deas Thompson, one of the commissioners of the navy."

References

* [http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=136:3:10101466444316947266::NO::P3_FID:1399924 USGS]