Kotzebue

History

Owing to its location and relative size, Kotzebue served as a trading and gathering center for the various communities in the region. The Noatak, Selawik and Kobuk Rivers drain into the Kotzebue Sound near Kotzebue to form a center for transportation to points inland. In addition to people from interior villages, inhabitants of far-eastern Asia, now the Russian Far East, came to trade at Kotzebue. Furs, seal-oil, hides, rifles, ammunition, and seal skins were some of the items traded. People also gathered for competitions like the current World Eskimo Indian Olympics. With the arrival of the whalers, traders, gold seekers, and missionaries, the trading center expanded. Kotzebue is also known as Qikiqtaġruk, which means "small island" or "resembles an island" in the Iñupiaq language. In the words of the late Iñupiaq elder Blanche Qapuk Lincoln of Kotzebue: Kotzebue gets its name from the Kotzebue Sound, which was named after Otto von Kotzebue, a Baltic German who explored the sound while searching for the Northwest Passage in the service of Russia in 1818. A United States post office was established in 1899. In 1958, Kotzebue Air Force Station was completed. The radar site would be operated by on-site personnel until its deactivation in 1983 and the subsequent demolition of most of the station's structures. The radome continues to operate, but is now mostly unattended. In 1990, the German drama film Salmonberries starring k.d. lang was mostly shot in Kotzebue. In 1997, three 66-kW wind turbines were installed in Kotzebue, creating the northernmost wind farm in the United States. Today, the wind farm consists of 19 turbines, including two 900 kW EWT turbines. The total installed capacity has reached 3 MW, displacing approximately 250,000 gallons of diesel fuel…

Geography

Kotzebue lies on a gravel spit at the end of the Baldwin Peninsula in the Kotzebue Sound. It is located at (66.897192, −162.585444), approximately from Noatak, Kiana, and other nearby smaller communities. It is north of the Arctic Circle on Alaska's western coast. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land, and , or 5.76%, is water. Kotzebue is home to the NANA Regional Corporation, one of thirteen Alaska Native Regional Corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) in settlement of Alaska Native land claims. Kotzebue is a gateway to Kobuk Valley National Park and other natural attractions of northern Alaska. The Northwest Arctic Heritage Center, operated by the National Park Service, serves as a community meeting space and visitor center to Kobuk Valley National Park, Noatak National Preserve and Cape Krusenstern National Monument. Nearby Selawik National Wildlife Refuge also maintains office space in the town. Kotzebue has a dry subarctic climate (Köppen Dfc), with long, somewhat snowy, and very cold winters, and short, mild summers; diurnal temperature variation is low to minimal throughout the year, with an annual normal of and a minimum normal of in October.}} the annual mean temperature has ranged from in 1964 to in 2016.--> |source 2 = Weather Atlas }} {|style="width:100%;text-align:center;line-height:1.2em;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto" class="wikitable" |- !Colspan=14|Coastal temperature data for Kotzebue |- !Month !Jan !Feb !Mar !Apr !May !Jun !Jul !Aug !Sep !Oct !Nov !Dec !style="border-left-width:medium"|Year |- !Average sea temperature °F (°C) | style=""|29.7(-1.28) | style=""|30.0(-1.11) | style=""|29.3(-1.50) | style=""|29.1(-1.61) |…

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Glaucous Gull

  Larus hyperboreus Gunnerus, 1767 · Aves
  329
• Common Raven

  Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  274
• White-crowned Sparrow

  Zonotrichia leucophrys (J.R.Forster, 1772) · Aves
  226
• Northern Pintail

  Anas acuta Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  209
• Common Redpoll

  Acanthis flammea (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  186
• Red-necked Phalarope

  Phalaropus lobatus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  184
• American Wigeon

  Mareca americana (J.F.Gmelin, 1789) · Aves
  174
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  158

Most recent

• M 3.2 — 2026-06-24
  34 km W of Kotzebue, Alaska
• M 2.7 — 2026-06-07
  36 km W of Kotzebue, Alaska
• M 2.8 — 2026-06-07
  36 km W of Kotzebue, Alaska
• M 2.7 — 2026-05-29
  17 km SSW of Noatak, Alaska
• M 2.8 — 2026-05-07
  38 km W of Kotzebue, Alaska
• M 2.7 — 2026-04-30
  34 km NNE of Deering, Alaska