Utukok River

The Utukok River is a 180 mile long river in the North Slope Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska that flows into the Chukchi Sea. [USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). [http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=gnispq:3:::NO::P3_FID:1411606 Utukok River.] Accessed Aug 20, 2007.]

Heading at 683400N, 1610600W in the DeLong Mountains at the confluence of Kogruk Creek and Tupik Creek and flowing N, NE, and then NW, to Kasegaluk Lagoon and the Arctic Ocean, 20 mi SW of Icy Cape, Arctic Plain.

History

"Utoqaq" is the Inuit name for "Icy Cape" and means "old" or "ancient." The name of the river appears to have been first mentioned by Lt. Zagoskin (1847, p. 74), IRN, when he referred to the Utukak-myut, or Utukak people, "on river of same name." Zagoskin received this information from Kashevarov, whose Creole guide, Utuktak, drew a map of the coast south of Point Barrow in 1838. The name was published in 1899 by USC&GS as "Ootokok River."

References

ee also

*List of Alaska rivers