Fort Yukon AFS was a continental defence radar station constructed to provide the United States Air Force early warning of an attack by the Soviet Union on Alaska.

As a GCI station, the squadron's initial role was to guide interceptor aircraft based at Ladd AFB near Fairbanks toward unidentified intruders picked up on the unit's radar scopes.

Due to the extreme temperatures, most of the site's operations were housed indoors, in a large composite structure consisting of a power/heating plant, water and fuel storage tanks, gymnasium and other support office buildings.

It was inactivated in 1979, and replaced by an Alascom owned and operated satellite earth terminal as part of an Air Force plan to divest itself of the obsolete White Alice Communications System and transfer the responsibility to a commercial firm.

It was designed to transmit aircraft tracking data via satellite to the Alaskan NORAD Regional Operations Control Center (ROCC) at Elmendorf AFB.

In 1998 Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) initiated "Operation Clean Sweep", in which abandoned Cold War stations in Alaska were remediated and the land restored to its previous state.