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 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, propane-powered oceanographic station in order to measure water flows across the Bering Strait. Northwinds crew continued to help maintain the station until its closure. 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. LeDoux was able to