Cape Dezhnyov or Cape Dezhnev (; ; Inupiaq: ''Nuuġaq''), formerly known as East Cape or Cape Vostochny, is a

cape A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment of any length that hangs loosely and connects either at the neck or shoulders. They usually cover the back, shoulders, and arms. They come in a variety of styles and have been used th ...

that forms the easternmost mainland point of

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

. It is located on the

Chukchi Peninsula The Chukchi Peninsula (also Chukotka Peninsula or Chukotski Peninsula; , ''Chukotskiy poluostrov'', short form , ''Chukotka''), at about 66° N 172° W, is the easternmost peninsula of Asia. Its eastern end is at Cape Dezhnev near the village ...

in the very sparsely populated

Chukotka Autonomous Okrug Chukotka ( ; ), officially the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, is the easternmost federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia. It is an Autonomous okrugs of Russia, autonomous okrug situated in the Russian Far East, and shares a border wi ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. This cape is located between the

Chukchi Sea The Chukchi Sea (, ), sometimes referred to as the Chuuk Sea, Chukotsk Sea or the Sea of Chukotsk, is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is bounded on the west by the Long Strait, off Wrangel Island, and in the east by Point Barrow, Alaska, ...

and the

Bering Strait The Bering Strait ( , ; ) is a strait between the Pacific and Arctic oceans, separating the Chukchi Peninsula of the Russian Far East from the Seward Peninsula of Alaska. The present Russia–United States maritime boundary is at 168° 58' ...

, across from Cape Prince of Wales in

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

; the

is delimited by the two capes. The

Diomede Islands The Diomede Islands (; ), also known in Russia as Gvozdev Islands (), consist of two rocky, mesa-like islands: * The Russian island of Big Diomede (part of Chukotka), also known as ', ''Inaliq'', ''Nunarbuk'' or Ratmanov Island * The U.S. isla ...

and

Fairway Rock Fairway Rock () (Census block 1047, Nome, Alaska) is a small islet with mostly vertical rock faces in the Bering Strait, located southeast of the Diomede Islands and west of Alaska's Cape Prince of Wales. Part of Alaska, a U.S. state, the isle ...

are located in the midst of the strait.Cape Dezhnyov

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; , ''BSE'') is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Great Russian Enc ...

- Dezhnev Cape, vol. 8, page 25

Geography

In 1898, the cape was officially renamed as Cape Dezhnev, replacing Captain

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

's name, the "East Cape". It was named in honor of Semyon Dezhnev, the first recorded European to round its tip (in 1648). There is a large monument to Dezhnev on the seacoast. The cape is the eastern tip of a high, rocky headland, about from

Uelen Uelen is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, rural locality (a ''village#Russia, selo'') in Chukotsky District, just south of the Arctic Circle in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in the Russian Far East. As of the Russian Census (2010), 2010 C ...

in the north to Cape Pe'ek in the south, connected to the mainland by a neck of lower-lying land peppered with swamps and shallow lakes. That low-lying land is so low in elevation that the cape appears as an island from a distance far to the south of it. The US Hydrographic Office publication ''Asiatic Pilot'' from 1909 gives the height of the headland as , and the US Office of Coast Survey chart of 2000 shows the highest peak at . The

headland A headland, also known as a head, is a coastal landform, a point of land usually high and often with a sheer drop, that extends into a body of water. It is a type of promontory. A headland of considerable size often is called a cape.Whittow, Jo ...

and the neck of low-lying land together form a

peninsula A peninsula is a landform that extends from a mainland and is only connected to land on one side. Peninsulas exist on each continent. The largest peninsula in the world is the Arabian Peninsula. Etymology The word ''peninsula'' derives , . T ...

. A well-established trail crossed the neck of land behind the headland in pre-historic and historic times, traversed by sleds in the winter and used as a portage in the summer to avoid traversing the strait. This route was important enough that, according to an analysis by linguist Michael Krauss, the

Central Siberian Yupik language Central Siberian Yupik (also known as Siberian Yupik, Bering Strait Yupik, Yuit, Yoit, "St. Lawrence Island Yupik", and in Russia "Chaplinski Yupik" or Yuk) is an endangered Yupik language spoken by the Indigenous Siberian Yupik people along the ...

continued up the coast, un-interrupted by the Naukansky dialect spoken in the village of Naukan on the headland. The

Great Circle In mathematics, a great circle or orthodrome is the circular intersection of a sphere and a plane passing through the sphere's center point. Discussion Any arc of a great circle is a geodesic of the sphere, so that great circles in spher ...

distance from Cape Dezhnev to the shore of the

Bab-el-Mandeb The Bab-el-Mandeb (), the Gate of Grief or the Gate of Tears, is a strait between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa. It connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and by extension the Indian Ocean. ...

strait in

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

is about , which is the longest land distance of

History

The Cape Dezhnev peninsula, (or East Cape, as it was then generally called) was a center for trade between American (and other) whalers and the fur traders and the native Yupik and Chukchi people of the coast in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the early years, ships would call at Uelen to trade for furs produced along the arctic coast. Subsequently, there were established trading stations at Uelen and Deshnevo (Chukchi name Keniskun; Yupik Kaniskak). When a source of that period speaks of stopping or trading at East Cape, either of these locations may be meant, or occasionally the Yupik village Naukan on the southeast shore of the cape, which had less trade because it lacked a good anchorage. Sources from that period sometimes speak of a village Emma-Town. Although this name may be derived from the nearby Yupik village Enmitahin (Chukchi for "end of the cliff") the name appears to refer to Keniskun (where the traders were) or perhaps to both villages together. Of the four historical villages on the cape itself, only Uelen is still inhabited. Naukan was evacuated in 1958 with most of the occupants relocated to Nunyamo near Saint Lawrence Bay, Chukotka, and Keniskun was merged with Uelen a little earlier. In Josef Bauer's '' As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me'' (1955), Cape Deshnev is given as the site of a Gulag lead-mine camp from which a German POW Clemens Forell (actual name: Cornelius Rost) escaped in 1949. Later research cast serious doubt on the book's accuracy. For example, at the time of the escape described, no Cape Dezhnev Guinevere Ruth colonel lives camp lead mine existed.

Gallery

File:Dezhnev Lighthouse.jpg, Cape Dezhnev lighthouse, August 2018 File:Kap Deschnjow 1 2013-08-02.jpg, Cape Dezhnev Lighthouse with Dezhnev Monument File:Kap Deschnjow 3 2014-08-17.jpg, Cape Dezhnev (Chukotka, Russia) with lighthouse (Dezhnew Monument) and abandoned village Naukan File:Naukan 1 2013-08-02.jpg, Kap Dezhnev, remains of abandoned Naukan village File:Naukan 2 2013-08-02.jpg, Erected whalebones near Naukan File:Soviet Outpost, Cape Dezhnev.jpg, Old Outpost File:Soviet Ruins, Cape Dezhnev.jpg, Soviet Ruins File:Naukan.jpg, Abandoned village of Naukan near Cape Dezhnev File:East Cape Hooper SW 1881.PNG, Sketch of Cape Dezhnev from the northeast. File:Cape Dezhnev w umiac.JPG, Chukchi men at Dezhnevo pulling an umiak onto the beach, Cape Dezhnev headland in background, 1913 File:Port Dezhnev Lagoon.JPG, View of part of Port Dezhnev, 1913. The American-style cabins near the lagoon are probably a trading station. File:Naukan whalebones.jpg, Dezhnev cape erected whalebones

References

General references

* . * Bockstoce, John R. (2009)
Furs and Frontiers in the Far North: The Contest Among Native and Foreign Nations for the Bering Strait Fur Trade
' The Lamar Series in Western History, Yale University Press, , * * Crow, John, Anastasia Yarzuktina, and Oksana Kolomiet
"American traders and the native people of Chukotka in the early 20th Century"
2010 International Conference on Russian America, Sitka, AK August 18–22. * Fisher, Raymond H. (ed) (1981) ''The Voyage of Semen Dezhnev in 1648: Bering's precursor, with selected documents''.

Hakluyt Society The Hakluyt Society is a text publication society, founded in 1846 and based in London, England, which publishes scholarly editions of primary records of historic voyages, travels and other geographical material. In addition to its publishin ...

, London. * Hodge, Frederick Webb (1912)
Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico: A-M
' Volume 30 of ''Bulletin'' (Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology). Part 1 of ''Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico''. (Hodge placed Enmitahin north of East Cape, contrary to the location on the USCGS chart. He reports 48 residents in 8 houses, c. 1895, citing Bogoras). * Krauss, Michael E. (2005
Eskimo languages in Asia, 1791 on, and the Wrangel Island-Point Hope connection
''Études/Inuit/Studies, vol. 29'' (1-2), 2005, pp 163–185. * Krupnik, Igor and Mikhail Chlenov (2007)

''Études/Inuit/Studies 31'' (1-2) pp 59–81. * Query Bering; select preview for year wanted. Click desired location to enlarge and center. * * Rasmussen, Knud
''Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition''
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1927. Scanned, illustrated, at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

. * * United States Hydrographic Office (1909).
Asiatic pilot, Volume 1.
' Issues 122-126; Issue 162 of H.O. pub. Gov. Printing Off., Washington.

External links

Cape Dezhnev east of Uelen, showing a Chukchi umiak paddling out to meet the steamer ''Corwin''

View of Uelen summer 1907

Trading post at Dezhnevo, late 1920s
{{Authority control Landforms of the Bering Sea

Dezhnyov Semyon Ivanovich Dezhnyov (, ; sometimes spelled Dezhnev; March 7, 1605 – 1673) was a Russian explorer of Siberia and the first European to sail through the Bering Strait, 80 years before Vitus Bering did. In 1648 he sailed from the Kolyma Riv ...

Pacific Coast of Russia Extreme points of Russia Bering Strait