Yttygran Island is an island in the Bering Sea

Bering Sea

The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves....

 24 km northwest of Cape Chaplino

Cape Chaplino

Cape Chaplino is a cape pointing eastward in the Bering Sea in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of the Russian Federation.This headland is located in an area of narrow beach ridges and swales which form a roughly triangular lagoon....

, close to the coast of Chukotka

Chukotka Autonomous Okrug

Chukotka Autonomous Okrug , or Chukotka , is a federal subject of Russia located in the Russian Far East.Chukotka has a population of 53,824 according to the 2002 Census, and a surface area of . The principal town and the administrative center is Anadyr...

. It is located 3.8 km to the south of Arakamchechen Island

Arakamchechen Island

Arakamchechen Island is an island in the Bering Sea. It lies north of Cape Chaplino, close to the coast of Chukotka. It is separated from the continental shore by an 8 km wide sound. This island is inhabited; the main settlement is Yanrakynnot village....

 and is separated from the continental shore by a sound that is only 1.5 km in its narrowest point.

Yttigran is 13.5 km long and has a maximum width of 5 Km. It has a mountaineous interior.

Beluga whales are common in the waters around Arakamchechen and Yttigran Islands.

Nowadays this island is popular with ecotourists

Ecotourism

Ecotourism is a form of tourism visiting fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas, intended as a low impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial tourism...

.

Whale Bone Alley

Situated on the northern shore of Yttygran island (from the Chukchi Etgyran, meaning "midway dwellings"), whale bone alley consists of a large number of carefully arranged whale skulls, whale bones and stones, along with a considerable number of meat storage pits. It is thought that Whale Bone Alley was used as a central shrine by a number of different villages dotted along the eastern chukotkan coast. It is thought that the site was used for initiation rituals and for sporting contests, although the local Yupik have a simpler explanation that the island was simplay a collective centre for the flensing

Flensing

Flensing is the removing of the outer integument of whales. English whalemen called it "flenching", while American whalemen called it "cutting-in".-Open-boat:-Shore and Bay whaling:...

, butchery and storage of whale meat

Whale meat

Whale meat is the flesh of whales used for consumption by humans or other animals. It is prepared in various ways, and is historically part of the diet and cuisine of various communities that live near an ocean, including those of Japan, Norway, Iceland, and the Arctic...

, an idea supported by the etymology of the Yupik name for Yttygran: Sikliuk, from Siklyugak, meaning "meat pit" in Yupik.

The site is monumental by Chukotkan standards when compared with other early settlements such as Uelen

Uelen

Uelen is a rural locality in the Chukotsky District, just south of the Arctic Circle in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in the Russian Far East. Population: 776 in 2003, with 595 Chukchi and 72 Yupik. Located near Cape Dezhnev where the Bering Sea meets the Chukchi Sea, it is the easternmost settlement...

, Ekven, Sireniki and Kivak, and consists of several lines of whale skulls and jaw bones along the shoreline, several large pits behind them and a number of meat pits surrounding a central sanctuary and stone path around one third of the way along the site travelling from south to north.

The site extends some 1800 feet along the northern coast of Yttygran Island and lies on a major whale migration path, and it is thought that the site was chosen partly because of the ease by which local people could kill and butcher a whale and also as a place where people could come together and trade on neutral grouund in a forerunner to the fairs held during the period of cossack

Cossack

Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...

 exploration of the region.

There is no evidence of any monumental ritual centre like this elsewhere in any other part of Eskimo lands, though there are sites along the Chukotkan coast where the whale skull motifs can be seen at sites such as Nykhsirak.

Administration

Administratively Yttygran Island belongs to Providensky District

Providensky District

Providensky District is an administrative and municipal district , one of the six in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. It is located in the southern half of the Chukchi Peninsula with a northwest extension reaching almost to Kolyuchinskaya Bay on the Arctic...

, part the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug

Chukotka Autonomous Okrug

Chukotka Autonomous Okrug , or Chukotka , is a federal subject of Russia located in the Russian Far East.Chukotka has a population of 53,824 according to the 2002 Census, and a surface area of . The principal town and the administrative center is Anadyr...

 of the Russian Federation.

External links

• Location
• Yttigran
• Tourism