Description
Juts into the Chukchi Sea, 26 mi SE of Point Hope, Arctic Slope.
History
Named by Captain Frederick William Beechey (1831, p. 262), Royal Navy, who wrote on August 2, 1826, "We closed with a high cape, which I named after Mr. Deas Thompson, one of the commissioners of the navy." An early Eskimo name for the cape was "Uivaq," generally spelled "Wevuk" or "Wevok." Cape Thompson was often referred to as "Unvaq Qanitoq," meaning "near cape," as opposed to "Univaq Ungasiktoq" (Cape Lisburne) meaning "distant cape." This cape was discovered by the Russians in the late eighteenth century and was called by them "M(ys) Rikord," i.e., "Cape Rikord," for Peter Ivanovich Rikord, 1776-1855, Imperial Russian Navy (IRN), Governor of Kamchatka, 1817-22.