The Width of a Day The shelf further reading
The shelf
Everything this atlas says comes from somewhere. Pull a spine off the shelf to see what it is and why it matters.
These are the places to go deeper: primary documents, oral histories, science papers and local reporting. Start with the glossary made with Diomede elders, or the oral histories of the Friendship Flight.
Diomede glossary Made with Diomede elders. Iñupiaq words for the islands, the crossings, the birds, and thirteen ways to prepare walrus. The closest thing here to the islands in their own words.
Kawerak Social Science Program, 2014
Friendship Flight tales First-hand memories of the closed border and the 1988 flight, including a radio conversation between relatives during Lynne Cox's swim.
National Park Service oral histories
1867 treaty The document that drew the line between the islands, “midway” between Krusenstern and Ratmanoff.
1867, Avalon Project, Yale Law School
AP 2015 Little Diomede trying to reconnect with relatives in Russia, and the history of Big Diomede's last residents.
Rachel D'Oro, Associated Press, Aug 18, 2015
TIME 1988 Reporting from the Friendship Flight, including old friends greeting each other in Yupik.
TIME, Jun 27, 1988
The toast The transcript where Gorbachev remembers Lynne Cox, and proof it was the dinner, not the treaty signing.
American Presidency Project, Dec 8, 1987
Lynne Cox, NPS The Park Service's account of the 1987 swim, with Cox's own description of the cold.
U.S. National Park Service
Swimming to Antarctica Cox's own book, with her account of the Bering Strait swim.
Lynne Cox, Knopf, 2004
Jakobsson 2017 Seafloor cores that date the reopening of the Bering Strait to about 11,000 years ago.
Jakobsson et al., Climate of the Past, 2017
Late land bridge The 2022 finding that the land bridge appeared only about 35,700 years ago.
UC Santa Cruz News, on Farmer, Pico et al., PNAS, 2022
Standstill A clear explanation of the idea that the first Americans waited in Beringia, and why it is debated.
Shared Beringian Heritage Program, NPS, 2021
Date line Pigafetta's lost day and the long history of working out where the date should change.
R. H. van Gent, Utrecht University
NASA A satellite view of the two islands, with distances and the nicknames.
NASA Earth Observatory, 2018
Seabird heart A seabird ecologist on why the Diomedes matter to millions of birds.
Kathy Kuletz, North Pacific Research Board, 2018
Bering inflow Twenty-five years of moorings measuring the current that runs north through the strait.
Woodgate, Progress in Oceanography, 2018
Remote Everyday life on Little Diomede: helicopters, ice, and the view of Russia.
Suzanna Caldwell, Anchorage Daily News, 2013
Mission to Chukotka A Big Diomede descendant's journey across Chukotka in search of her grandfather's family.
Kirsten Swann, Alaska Dispatch News, Oct 30, 2016
Lend-Lease How nearly 8,000 American warplanes were flown across the strait to the Soviet Union in 1942–45.
Wikipedia
Everything on the shelf Little Diomede Iñupiaq Glossary and Walrus Preparation Guide , Kawerak Social Science Program, 2014Hope: Tales of the Friendship Flight Era , National Park Service oral historiesTreaty concerning the Cession of the Russian Possessions in North America , 1867, Avalon Project, Yale Law SchoolVillage seeks to reunite with Russian relatives , Rachel D'Oro, Associated Press, Aug 18, 2015Thaw in the Ice Curtain , TIME, Jun 27, 1988Toasts at the State Dinner for General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev , American Presidency Project, Dec 8, 1987Lynne Cox , U.S. National Park ServiceSwimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer , Lynne Cox, Knopf, 2004Post-glacial flooding of the Bering Land Bridge , Jakobsson et al., Climate of the Past, 2017Bering Strait land bridge formed surprisingly late , UC Santa Cruz News, on Farmer, Pico et al., PNAS, 2022The Beringian Standstill , Shared Beringian Heritage Program, NPS, 2021The discovery of the date line , R. H. van Gent, Utrecht UniversityYesterday and Tomorrow Islands , NASA Earth Observatory, 2018The seabird heart of Bering Strait , Kathy Kuletz, North Pacific Research Board, 2018Increases in the Pacific inflow to the Arctic from 1990 to 2015 , Woodgate, Progress in Oceanography, 2018In the middle of the Bering Sea, with Russia looming, Little Diomede defines remote , Suzanna Caldwell, Anchorage Daily News, 2013Mission to Chukotka , Kirsten Swann, Alaska Dispatch News, Oct 30, 2016ALSIB: the Alaska–Siberia air route , Wikipedia← back into the story
More threads The families the line divided Big Diomede, 1948, and the reunions that came forty years later Swimming into tomorrow Lynne Cox, the Bering Strait, and a toast at the White House The land bridge Beringia, and the first people in the Americas How the date line works Why the Diomedes are 21 hours apart, and who decided Every name they have had Iŋaliq, Imaqłiq, Ratmanov, Kruzenshtern, Tomorrow, Yesterday The ones who cross freely Auklets, walrus and whales in the strait The Width of a Day a hand-drawn, scroll-driven atlas of the Diomede Islands. Begin at the beginning →