Fairway Rock Fairway Rock is a small islet in the Bering Strait , located southeast of the Diomede Islands and west of Alaska ' s Cape Prince of Wales . It has an area of 0 . 3 km² ( . 12 mi² , Census block 1047 , Nome , Alaska ) . Known to Eskimo natives of the Bering Strait region in prehistory , Fairway was documented by James Cook in 1778 and named by Frederick Beechey in 1826 . Although uninhabited , the island is a nesting site for seabirds — most notably the least and crested auklet — which prompt egg - collecting visits from local indigenous peoples . The United States Navy placed radioisotope thermoelectric generator - powered environmental monitoring equipment on the island from the 1960s through the 1990s . Geography . The granite mass that is now Fairway Rock , like the larger nearby Diomede Islands , is the remnant of an earlier era of glaciation . Fairway Rock is situated 12 mi ( 19 km ) SSE of Little Diomede Island and 20 mi ( 32 km ) W of Cape Prince of Wales , at . The island is variously reported as from 300 m Rising steeply from the surrounding waters to above sea level , Fairway Rock can be easily seen from the mainland coast of Alaska at Cape Prince of Wales . Because of its steep cliffs , it poses no additional maritime hazard . Ocean currents north of Fairway Rock are occasionally studied as an example of a real - world system where a Von Kármán vortex street is generated . Politically , Fairway Rock is part of the U . S . state of Alaska and lies inside Alaska ' s Nome Census Area and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game ' s Wildlife Conservation Unit 22E . It is conveyed to Inalik Native Corporation . Fairway Rock appears on USGS topographic maps in the Teller Quadrangle . Flora and fauna . The island ' s bold cliffs are a haven for many migratory bird s . The indigenous peoples who have lived nearby for thousands of years come to the island to gather bird eggs in the Spring . and have continued to do so as recently as the 1990s . The island supports a breeding colony of about 35 , 000 seabirds , including some 25 , 000 Least and Crested Auklet s . In 1925 , the Tufted Puffin ( " Fratercula cirrhata " ) , Horned Puffin ( " Fratercula corniculata " ) , Parakeet Auklet s ( " Aethia psittacula " ) , and Pallas ' Murre ( " Uria lomvia arra " ) were reported at Fairway Rock , nesting in the crevices of the island ' s cliffs . A 1960 account reports that Eskimo inhabitants of Little Diomede reported a Glaucous Gull ( " Larus hyperboreus " ) colony on Fairway Rock larger than that on Little Diomede . The Steller Sea Lion , an endangered species , may also breed on Fairway Rock . History . Discovery and establishment of outpost . Fairway Rock was sighted by Captain James Cook on August 8 , 1778 . It was named by the English naval officer and geographer Frederick William Beechey upon sighting the island in July 1826 . Unlike the names he gave to the Diomede Islands , the name " Fairway " has persisted . Fairway Rock was passed and mentioned within the accounts of John Muir ' s voyage aboard the " Corwin " in 1881 and Roald Amundsen aboard the " Gjøa " in 1906 . What is considered the last offensive action of the American Civil War happened in this area : the CSS " Shenandoah " fell upon a fleet of whalers working the waters near Alaska ' s Little Diomede Island and sank more than two dozen ships on June 22 , 1865 . This is chronicled in the book " The Last Shot " . In 1964 , the U . S . Coast Guard icebreaker USCGC " Northwind " ( WAGB - 282 ) visited the rock , and installed an unmanned oceanographic station in order to measure water flows across the Bering Strait . The radioisotope thermoelectric generator . On August 11 , 1966 , the US Navy placed a strontium - powered radioisotope thermoelectric generator ( RTG ) atop Fairway Rock for " powering environmental instruments " . At this time Commander John C . LeDoux was in charge of NavFac ' s shore based nuclear power program , whose over 200 trained men only had one power plant to run . With a new NavFac Chief taking over soon , Commander LeDoux feared the program might be cancelled if it had no other applications . In his memoir LeDoux writes that , " like good marketers we produced a catalog of what was available and sent it to all Navy commands . " Within two weeks they received an urgent request for a generator at Fairway Rock . Fairway Rock ' s then - current generator was propane fueled and could not operate in the winter months . Since the generator powered " detectors on the ocean floor for submarine traffic heading North " it was considered essential that it be replaced rapidly . However , moving the new generator from Baltimore to Alaska to Fairway Rock would be a complicated process and LeDoux suspected that " red tape " would delay the operation for a long time . Commander LeDoux was able to use contacts in the AEC to get approval to move the generator in only 4 days , which he considered " a miracle in itself . " A weekly Air Force flight to Vietnam was able to take it to Alaska . Getting the generator onto the island itself proved more difficult , since there were no Navy helicopters in the area . A bush pilot was contracted , two refueling locations were set up by the Army Corps of Engineers , and a Coast Guard escort was assigned , allowing the journey over the Bering Strait to be made safely . In the end , the project only took 10 days and " was done with no money or paperwork – mostly phone calls and personal visits . " LeDoux was impressed that a project involving so many disparate military and non - military parties could be carried off in such a short span of time . The device , developed by Martin Marietta , was the first commercially - developed instrument of its kind deployed for unattended field use by the U . S . government . This use was cited in 1978 congressional hearings on potential uses for nuclear waste . In 1981 two additional RTGs were added . All three RTGs were removed from the rock in 1995 in a joint Army / Navy operation with Chinook helicopter s from B Company , 4th Battalion , 123rd Aviation Regiment , the " Sugar Bears " of Fort Wainwright , AK . The three RTGs were transported from Fort Wainwright , AK to the Richland Consolidation Facility at Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state for disposal .