[1] It is located 26 miles (42 km) to the southeast of Point Hope, Arctic Slope.
It is part of the Chukchi Sea unit of Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge.
Early Inuit names for this cape were "Eebrulikgorruk" and "Uivvaq", also spelled "Wevuk" or "Wevok."
This cape was later renamed by Captain Frederick William Beechey of the Royal Navy, who wrote on August 2, 1826: "We closed with a high cape, which I named after Mr. Deas Thomson, one of the commissioners of the navy."
In 1958 Cape Thompson was the proposed site for an artificial harbor to be dug using hydrogen bombs via Project Chariot.