If you have had the opportunity to read James Michener’s documentary novel ‘Alaska’, you already have an image in mind of the Wainwright environment.  The author and his wife mad an extended visit to this area in preparing the novel and he created a fictional village and history, largely based on this community, at a location on the Arctic Ocean (Chuckchi Sea) coast between present day Barrow and Wainwright.  The real Wainwright is about 90 miles southwest of Barrow at 70° 40’ north latitude.  At the edge of the sea the Wainwright people refer to themselves as Tagiumiut ‘People of the Sea’.  One of several smaller, earlier communities the current site is called Ulgunik (Olgoonik) from which the village business cooperation takes its name.

The community infrastructure of modern-day Wainwright includes an elementary and high school complex,; power generation plant; water and sewage treatment facilities; a public health clinic; fire station/search & rescue base; police station; a community center two churches; a community teleconference center; laundromat; post office; a general (coop) store; a small hotel with a café; and several small shops for crafts, video rentals, pizza and other take-outs.

The current (1998-99 regional census) population of Wainwright stands at approximately 530 people in 170 households.  About ninety-three percent of the residents are Iñupiat (Eskimos).  There are approximately 375 people in the village workforce with the North Slope Borough, the Olgoonik (Village) Corporation, and the NSB School District as the principal employers in that order. The ‘other employers’ category accounts for the greatest number of employees in Wainwright, however this category includes a large number of seasonal or part-time personnel.  Thirty percent of the village workforce is occupied in the provision of electricity, water and sewage treatment, and maintenance of roads and public facilities.  In addition, local residents are employed to provide health, education, public safety, and administrative services.  As noted above the Olgoonik Corporation, its for about twenty-one percent of the workforce.  As with other North Slope communities, a ‘workforce profile’ must recognize those occupied in subsistence hunting, fishing and whaling activities which remain a significant component of the community and household economies.

The telecommunications facilities serving Wainwright include a fully digital local exchange telephone service, local dial-up Internet, still widely-used citizens band (CB) radio, public safety VHF facilities, cable-TV, KBRW public radio broadcast, and the community-access public teleconferencing center.  The current penetration of basic, residential telephone service exceeds 85 percent.  Interconnection with the public, switched telecommunications network is via satellite circuits which currently present a bandwidth and high cost limitation to the residents needing access to the Internet and other advanced services dependent on affordable, higher bandwidth.  The North Slope Borough, in coordination with the North Slope Borough School District, leases private satellite circuits and funds a ‘long-distance’ network in order to provide distance education, telehealth and support for governmental service administration in the community.  Physical transportation, as in the other North Slope villages, is provided by scheduled and chartered aircraft.  These flights are mainly to and from Barrow.  During the open water season, a considerable amount of boating traffic occurs along the coast and inland, on the Kuuk River drainage, from Wainwright.