Selawik Lake ( Inupiaq: ''Imaġruk'') is a lake located southwest of

Selawik, Alaska Selawik () ( Iñupiaq: ''Siiḷ(i)vik'' or ''Akuliġaq''; ) is a city in Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 829, up from 772 in 2000. ''Selawik'' comes from , which means "place of sheefish" ...

. It is long. It is adjacent to the

Selawik National Wildlife Refuge Selawik National Wildlife Refuge in northwest Alaska in the Waring Mountains was officially established in 1980 with the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). This national wildlife refuge is home to mammal ...

and the Baldwin Peninsula, feeding into the Hotham Inlet and

Kotzebue Sound Kotzebue Sound is an arm of the Chukchi Sea in the western region of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is on the north side of the Seward Peninsula and bounded on the east by the Baldwin Peninsula. It is long and wide. Kotzebue Sound is located in ...

. Selawik Lake is the third largest lake 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 ...

after

Iliamna Lake Iliamna Lake or Lake Iliamna ( ; ; ) is a lake in southwest Alaska, at the north end of the Alaska Peninsula, between Kvichak Bay and Cook Inlet, about west of Seldovia, Alaska. It shares a name with the Iliamna River, which flows into it, and th ...

and

Becharof Lake Becharof Lake is a long lake on the Alaska Peninsula. It is located south-east of Egegik, Alaska, Egegik, in the Aleutian Range. It is the second largest lake in Alaska after Iliamna Lake. It ranks eighth on list of largest lakes of the United ...

, and seventeenth largest lake in the

United States of America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguo ...

History

Its

Iñupiaq language Iñupiaq or Inupiaq ( , ), also known as Iñupiat, Inupiat ( ), Iñupiatun or Alaskan Inuit, is an Inuit language, or perhaps group of languages, spoken by the Iñupiat people in northern and northwestern Alaska, as well as a small adjacent par ...

name was first reported in 1842–44 by Lt.

Lavrenty Zagoskin Lavrenty Alekseyevich Zagoskin (; 21 May 1808 – 22 January 1890) was a Russian naval officer and explorer of Alaska. Zagoskin was born in 1808 in the Russian district of Penza in a village named Nikolayevka. Even though Nikolayevka was not nea ...

, IRN, who spelled it ''Chilivik'', and probably meant to apply to an Iñupiaq tribe or village. It appears to have been by one of the

Sir John Franklin Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer and colonial administrator. After serving in the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and thro ...

search expeditions about 1850.

References

Lakes of Alaska Bodies of water of Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska {{NorthwestArcticAK-geo-stub