On the Chukchi Sea, 152 miles southwest of Barrow, one will find the traditional community of Kali, name Point Lay on the maps of today.  An active subsistence life-style is one of the well-known characteristics of this small community.  In addition to the inland and coastal fish, animals and birds that are harvested, Point Lay is also a whaling community but not in relation to the bowhead whale sought by the other Arctic Slope communities.  Due to the configuration of the barrier islands and lagoons in the vicinity of the village, the traditional whaling is for the beluga whales that migrate in considerable numbers through the shallow, near shore water and a re accessible to the residents.

Point Lay is another of the North Slope villages that shares its present location with one of the cold-war era Distant Early Warning (DEW) sites which are located across Alaska, Canada and Greenland.  Today many of these once active radar sites, such as the one neighboring Point Lay, are either deactivated or operated on a ‘remote control’, automated basis.

Point Lay is an active community with modern public facilities.  The village, once located with its trading post/whaling station on one of the larger barrier islands of the Kasugaluk Lagoon, has undergone several relocation projects in recent years.  The present, permanent location is on a mound overlooking the lagoon.  That location, in fact, is the origin of the traditional name, Kali, which means ‘mound’ in the Iñupiaq language.  The modern infrastructure of Point Lay includes an elementary and high school complex, power generation plant, water and sewage treatment facilities, a public health clinic, fire station/search & rescue base, a new police station, community teleconference center, laundromat, post office, a general store, and a small hotel.  The telecommunications facilities serving Point Lay include a fully digital local exchange telephone service, local dial-up Internet, widely-used citizens band (CB) radio, cable-TV, KBRW public radio broadcast, and the community-access public teleconferencing center.  Interconnection with the public, switched telecommunications network is via satellite circuits which currently present a limitation to the residents needing access to higher bandwidth services, especially the Internet.  The North Slope Borough, in coordination with the NSB School District, leases private circuits and maintains a ‘long-distance’ network in order to provide distance education, telehealth and support for governmental service administration in the community.  Physical transportation, as is the case in the other North Slope villages, is provided by scheduled and chartered aircraft.  These flights are from Barrow and Kotzebue.

The current population of Point Lay totals approximately 246 people and about ninety-two percent are Iñupiat (Eskimos).  The North Slope Borough is the principal employer of the 100 people in the workforce with about forty-one percent of that workforce involved in production 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.  The North Slope Borough School District accounts for about 12 percent of the workforce.  The village and regional corporations and their subsidiary or affiliated companies are the other major employers in the community.  As noted above the subsistence hunting, fishing and whaling activities remain a significant component of the local economy.