Bristol Bay, an area of 83 thousand square meters. km, located in the southeastern part of the Bering Sea (the Pacific Ocean), off the southwestern coast of Alaska. The northern border is Cape Newenham, the southern one is the Alaska Peninsula and Unimak Island, which are covered by mountains and volcanic hills.
Characteristic
In order to find the Gulf of Bristol on a world map, you will first need to find the mainland - North America. And already in its northwestern part this water area is located. The entrance to the bay is 480 km wide. Shipping is limited, only small fishing boats can pass. The water area "cuts" deep into the mainland for 320 km. The average depth is 27-55 meters, in the largest depression this figure rises to 84. Ocean tides on the coast are among the highest in the world. Sometimes they exceed 10 meters. A large number of rifts and shallows makes navigation difficult, especially during strong winds and frequent fogs, which makes this area very dangerous for large ships.
Take a look at the story
Eleven thousand years ago, the Bristol Bay on the map was much smaller. Most of its present part was land, which belonged to the biogeographic region - Beringia (land bridge between Asia and North America). Then the first immigrants arrived in Alaska - the ancestors of the Indians and Paleo-Asians. In 1778, the gulf was discovered by James Cook, who named it in honor of Admiral Count Bristol. In 1790, temporary Russian settlements appeared on the coast, and in the first half of the 19th century, search parties of the Russian-American company appeared. It was then that the shores of the bay were investigated and described, thanks to which many Russian names are still preserved on the map.
Features
If you find the Gulf of Bristol on the map, you can see that nine relatively large rivers flow into it: Sinder, Nushagak, Igejik, Kvichak and others. The mouths of most water streams and small springs are located on the low northern coast and in the depths of the water. Rivers descend from the mountains. And in the lower reaches flow in a swampy, forested area. The largest bays are Kvichak and Nushagak.
Settlements
The largest coastal settlements are Dillingham, King Salmon and Naknek. Their total population (Indians, whites and mestizos) does not exceed five thousand people. Small settlements of fishermen - Eskimos, Atabascans and Aleuts - are scattered throughout the coast. Bristol Bay is still almost untouched by civilization. On its banks there are no river dams, hydroelectric power stations and forest felling. It is also worth noting that there are no roads. In total, about 7,500 people live on the coast, of which 66% are Aboriginal.
Animal and plant world
Bristol Bay in North America, along with river mouths, serves as the world's largest spawning ground for sockeye salmon, which comes in for several weeks every summer in the amount of 30-40 million individuals. In addition to her, chum salmon spawns in this water area, as well as coho salmon and chinook salmon. There are a lot of rainbow trout and grayling in the rivers, eating sockeye salmon caviar. Northern pike, char and char are also found. Marine mammals are represented by seals, walruses, sea otters, belugas and killer whales.
Fauna and flora of the coast are typical of the transition zone between the taiga and tundra. Brown and black bears, beavers, porcupines, wolverines, otters, wolves, foxes, deer are found in forests and swamps. In the reservoirs there are many species of waterfowl, and the largest among the raptors are the bald eagle and bald eagle.
Fishing is the main area
The industry is represented by commercial fisheries and fish processing enterprises, providing 75% of the jobs in the region. Four species of salmon harvested here account for 40% of the industrial catch in the United States and one third of all harvest in the waters of Alaska. Bristol Bay attracts a large number of fishermen-athletes (about 37 thousand people a year), hunting is carried out in the forests, and the influx of tourists coming from Kathmay National Park, located on the southern coast of the Alaska Peninsula, is increasing annually.
Minerals
Oil and gas deposits were discovered on the southern shore of the bay, but a moratorium was approved for their exploitation in 1998, confirmed in 2014. The most serious threat to the ecology of the bay is represented by the plans of the Pebble mining consortium, which has prospected a geological anomaly on the coast, which includes perhaps the largest gold deposit and one of the largest copper deposits on the planet. According to experts, the Bristol Bay “hides” 40 million tons of copper, 3300 tons of gold and 2.8 million tons of molybdenum underground, which can bring from 100 to 500 billion dollars. Whereas the income from fishing for salmon is $ 120 million per year.
In order to extract minerals, it is planned to dig a giant quarry, create several dams in the seismic and hazardous area to contain lakes of toxic waste, lay hundreds of miles of roads and build a power station and a deep-sea port. For industrial needs, almost 130 million cubic meters of water per year will be required, which will lead to shallowing of the rivers. Opponents of mining indicate that fish is a renewable resource, while mining will eventually exhaust natural resources and destroy the local ecosystem.