Fort Yukon

History

This area north of the Arctic Circle was occupied for thousands of years by cultures of indigenous people and in historic times by the Gwich’in people. means "House on the Flats" in Gwichʼin. What became the village of Fort Yukon developed from a trading post, Fort Yukon, established by Alexander Hunter Murray of the Hudson's Bay Company, on June 25, 1847. Murray drew numerous sketches of fur trade posts and of people and wrote the Journal of the Yukon, 1847–48, which gave valuable insight into the culture of the Gwich’in at the time. While the post was in Russian America, the Hudson's Bay Company continued to trade there until the American traders expelled it in 1869, following the Alaska Purchase when the Alaska Commercial Company took over the post. During the Klondike Gold Rush, in the winter of 1897–1898, Fort Yukon received two hundred prospectors from Dawson City, which was short of supply. A post office was established on July 12, 1898, with John Hawksly as its first postmaster. The settlement suffered over the following decades as a result of several infectious disease epidemics and a 1949 flood. During the 1950s, the United States Air Force established a base and radar station at Fort Yukon; the town was officially incorporated in 1959. Since the late 20th century, due in part to its extreme northerly location and its proximity to Fairbanks, it has become a minor tourist destination. On February 7, 1984, a Terrier Malemute-type sounding rocket, with a maximum altitude of , was launched from Fort Yukon.

Geography

Fort Yukon is located on the north bank of the Yukon River at its confluence with the Porcupine River, about northeast of Fairbanks. As of 2014, the Arctic Circle passes through the southern portion of the city at . Due to long-term oscillations in the Earth's axis, the Arctic Circle currently shifts northward by about per year, though varying substantially from year to year due to the complexity of the movement. According to the United States Census Bureau, Yukon City has a total area of , of which of it is land and of it (5.65%) is water. Fort Yukon has a strongly continental subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification: Dsc). In the summer Fort Yukon has midnight sun and in December the sun appears for only a few hours each day. Summer temperatures are exceptionally high for such a northerly area, being far warmer than the tree line threshold. The highest temperature ever recorded in Alaska occurred in Fort Yukon on June 27, 1915, when it reached . This was also the highest temperature recorded north of the Arctic Circle until June 20, 2020, when it was tied by a reading at Verkhoyansk, a location similarly known for its extremely continental climate. Many sources claim Verkhoyansk had the warmer temperature, but due to the two different temperature scales used and the fact that neither town recorded the temperature to the tenth of a degree, it's impossible to know if Verkhoyansk truly broke Fort Yukon's record. Fort Yukon is also subject to severe winters, being less influenced by chinook winds than areas to the west—the winter season absolute maximum being colder than in Fairbanks. Until 1971, Fort Yukon held the all-time lowest temperature record for Alaska and the United States at on January 14, 1934, and it still holds the record for the lowest…

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Swainson's Thrush

  Catharus ustulatus (Nuttall, 1840) · Aves
  11
• Lesser Yellowlegs

  Tringa flavipes (J.F.Gmelin, 1789) · Aves
  10
• Wilson's Snipe

  Gallinago delicata (Ord, 1825) · Aves
  10
• White-crowned Sparrow

  Zonotrichia leucophrys (J.R.Forster, 1772) · Aves
  9
• Greater Scaup

  Aythya marila (Linnaeus, 1761) · Aves
  8
• American Wigeon

  Mareca americana (J.F.Gmelin, 1789) · Aves
  7
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  7
• Semipalmated Plover

  Charadrius semipalmatus Bonaparte, 1825 · Aves
  5

Largest nearby schools

• Fort Yukon School
  Other · Fort Yukon · 76 students · 8.4:1 ratio

Most recent

• M 3.4 — 2026-09-13
  44 km WNW of Central, Alaska
• M 3 — 2026-08-17
  11 km WSW of Venetie, Alaska
• M 2.6 — 2026-04-24
  34 km NNE of Beaver, Alaska
• M 2.5 — 2026-03-05
  35 km S of Chalkyitsik, Alaska
• M 2.8 — 2025-09-28
  28 km N of Chalkyitsik, Alaska
• M 4.2 — 2025-06-14
  44 km WNW of Central, Alaska