Ugashik Bay is a bay of the Bering Sea in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...

. It is an elongated, comma-shaped estuary formed where the

Ugashik River The Ugashik River is a stream, long, on the Alaska Peninsula of the U.S. state of Alaska. It flows from headwaters near Lower Ugashik Lake and empties into Ugashik Bay, an estuary of the Bering Sea's Bristol Bay. The origin of the name Ugas ...

empties into Bristol Bay, on the western coast of the Alaska Peninsula. Its waters are characteristically turbid and turbulent, the result of muddy feeder streams, frequent winds, and very high tides. Some Bristol Bay tides are thought to rank eighth highest in the world, and Ugashik Bay is greatly influenced by this tidal action. The bay is bordered on the north by a sand beach stretching from

Smoky Point Smoky Point is a point of land in the U.S. state of Alaska, located at , where Ugashik Bay joins the much larger Bristol Bay. The most easily distinguishable landmark is the United States Coast Guard lighthouse which is visible to mariners on ...

on the west to the wide mouth of

Dago Creek Dago Creek (Sugpiaq: ''Kuigaa'aq'') is a stream, long, on the Alaska Peninsula in the U.S. state of Alaska. Beginning in a small lake southeast of Egegik, it meanders southwest across the flats to enter Ugashik Bay southeast of Smoky Poin ...

, on the east by a mud-and-sand shoreline running nearly true north-south past the village of Pilot Point to Muddy Point. The southern shore is a shifting series of mud-and-sand ridges, the northernmost and most prominent of which is called South Spit. The bay influences a marine zone ranging from

Cape Greig Cape Greig is a geographical feature of the Alaska Peninsula in the U.S. state of Alaska, where a 290-foot (88 meter) ridge juts into the Bering Sea. It is located on the Bristol Bay coast eight miles north of Smoky Point ( Ugashik Bay) and 32 ...

, north, to Cape Menshikof, to the south. Ugashik Bay's weather is quite variable, especially during winter when storm systems frequently change climatological influences on the area. Storms blowing winds up from the

North Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

can make winter conditions relatively mild, even balmy; whereas winds from the

Alaska Interior Interior Alaska is the central region of Alaska's territory, roughly bounded by the Alaska Range to the south and the Brooks Range to the north. It is largely wilderness. Mountains include Denali in the Alaska Range, the Wrangell Mountains, and ...

can bring clear and bitter cold conditions. Westerly winds blowing off the Bering Sea bring high humidity and biting cold, combined with coastal low clouds and fog, even in summer. This is so commonplace that Smoky Point was named from the frequent inclement weather.

External links

Ugashik Area website
{{coord, 57, 33, 47, N, 157, 38, 32, W, scale:500000, display=title Bays of Alaska Bodies of water of Lake and Peninsula Borough, Alaska