Barrow (town)

Town and administrative headquarters of North Slope Borough, north-central Alaska, USA; population (2000 est) 4,600. It is situated on the Arctic Ocean, 18 km/11 mi southwest of the northernmost point in the USA, Point Barrow (71° 23' N). It lies 820 km/510 mi north-northwest of Fairbanks. Barrow, incorporated in 1958, is the northernmost town in the USA, and is home to the world's largest Inuit settlement; some of the Inuit still live in the traditional way. The town serves as a regional trading centre. Whaling, trapping, crafts, tourism, government work, and the oil industry have all been important to the local economy.

There are oilfields at Prudhoe Bay, 322 km/200 mi to the east-southeast. A US meteorological station (1881), a US naval research laboratory, and naval and air bases are all nearby. Originally an Inuit whaling village on a promontory overlooking the ocean, its earliest name was Utkiakvik (‘high place for viewing’); it was named after John Barrow of the British Admiralty. Barrow and Point Barrow have long been jumping-off points for Arctic and North Pole aviation and exploration. A monument to the humorist Will Rogers and the bush pilot Wiley Post, who died here in a 1935 plane crash, is 21 km/13 mi to the south-southwest. Barrow has four entries on the National Register of Historic Places, including a rescue station.