Bristol Bay

Satellite image of the Bristol Bay

The Bristol Bay west of the Alaska Peninsula

The Bristol Bay is the easternmost arm and the flattest part of the Bering Sea.

The bay is bounded on the north from the mainland of Alaska and the east and south of the Alaska Peninsula. It is 400 km long and at its mouth into the open sea 290 km wide. North concludes with the Yukon - Kuskokwim Delta in the alluvial deposits of the rivers in the Yukon Kuskokwim and Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge.

At the eastern end of the bay, in the Nushagak Bay near Dillingham and in Kvichak Bay in Naknek, it comes with up to about ten meters to one of the highest Tidenhube the earth. West of the Nushagak Bay is the Nushagak Peninsula.

The Bristol Bay was until about 10,000 years ago part of Beringia, a land bridge between North America and Asia, probably the first people migrated over to America. After rising sea bay formed a rich food source for humans and animals.

Russian and English explorers in the 18th century brought the first European influences in the region. James Cook named the bay in 1778 after the British naval officer John Augustus Hervey, 3rd Earl of Bristol ( 1724-1779 ). The Russian-American company of posted in the late 1790s survey team for exploring and mapping the coast of the Bristol Bay and the adjacent inland. 1819 created the Aleutians Andrei Ustiugov the first comprehensive map of the bay. Until the mid-19th century, the Russian Navy conducted extensive surveys in the Bering Sea and Bristol Bay and gave many geographical objects such as the Mount Pavlof or Becharof Lake names that are still used today.