Barter Island LRRS Airport Barter Island LRRS Airport is a public / military airport located near the city of Kaktovik on Barter Island , in the North Slope Borough , located east of Point Barrow , Alaska . The airport is owned by the North Slope Borough . It is also known as Barter Island Airport or Kaktovik Airport . The acronym LRRS stands for " Long Range Radar Site " or " Long Range Radar Station " . Facilities and aircraft . Barter Island LRRS Airport has one runway designed 7 / 25 with a gravel surface measuring 4 , 820 by 100 feet ( 1 , 469 x 30 m ) . For the 12 - month period ending December 31 , 2005 , the airport had 3 , 350 aircraft operations , an average of 9 per day : 75 % air taxi , 24 % general aviation and 1 % military . History . The original runway was built by the United States military in 1947 . The U . S . Air Force assumed control of Barter Island in 1951 and extended the runway in 1953 to support the Distant Early Warning Line Radar station at Barter Island ( BAR - MAIN ) . The Barter Island DEW Line station was operated by civilian contract workers . The DEW Line station was inactivated in 1990 and the station personnel were relieved of duty . The radar station was upgraded with an AN / FPS - 117 minimally attended Long Range surveillance radar in the winter of 1990 . A prototype AN / FPS - 124 short - range radar was also installed . The station was re - designated part of the North Warning System ( NWS ) as a Long Range Radar Site , A - 21 , being controlled by the Pacific Air Forces 611th Air Support Group , based at Elmendorf AFB . In 1998 Pacific Air Forces initiated " Operation Clean Sweep " , in which abandoned Cold War stations in Alaska were remediated and the land restored to its previous state . The site remediation of the radar and support station was carried out by the 611th Civil Engineering Squadron at Elmendorf , and remediation work was completed by 2005 . The airport remains open to support the small settlement at Kaktovik and to provide contractor support access to the military radar site . Distant Early Warning Line support . The Barter Island station controlled a sector of the Distant Early Warning Line . The BAR sector was composed of a series of surveillance radar stations along the North Slope of the Alaska Coast as well as stations in the Canadian Yukon and Northwest Territories . Barter Island controlled nine manned stations , four of them being classified as " auxiliary " sites and five " intermediate " stations . The auxiliary stations were similar to the main site at Barter Island ; the intermediate sites had less personnel at them . The stations were made up of an AN / FPS - 19 search radar , a high power L - Band radar consisting of two identical radar sets feeding a dual ( back to back ) antenna with a range of about 160 nautical miles . The sites had one 25 - man module building for personnel who supported the radar , and an airstrip , although the length and capacity varied greatly , making frequent risky landings necessary at some sites . Each of the sites was staffed by civilian contract workers who had signed 18 - month contracts , although they were visited by Air Force military personnel frequently . With the signing of the North American Air Defence Modernization agreement at the " Shamrock Summit " between Prime Minister Mulroney and President Reagan in Quebec City on 18 March 1985 , the DEW Line began its eventual upgrading and transition becoming the North Warning System ( NWS ) of today . The intermediate sites were closed in 1963 due to the advancements in radar technology . Operational NWS sites have retained their former DEW Line designations . The Canadian NWS sites are under the jurisdiction of the NORAD Canada West ROCC at CFB North Bay Ontario ; Barter Island is under the jurisdiction of the Alaska NORAD Region ROCC at Elmendorf AFB .