Fairway Rock

Fairway Rock is a small islet in the Bering Strait, located southeast of the Diomede Islands and west of Alaska's Cape Prince of Wales. It has an area of 0.3 km² (.12 mi², Census block 1047, Nome, Alaska). Known to Eskimo natives of the Bering Strait region in prehistory, Fairway was documented by James Cook in 1778 and named by Frederick Beechey in 1826. Although uninhabited, the island is a nesting site for seabirds — most notably the least and crested auklet — which prompt egg-collecting visits from local indigenous peoples. The United States Navy placed radioisotope thermoelectric generator-powered environmental monitoring equipment on the island from the 1960s through the 1990s.