[1] Beluga whales are common in the waters around Yttigran and neighbouring Arakamchechen islands.

Administratively Yttygran Island belongs to Providensky District, part the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of the Russian Federation.

[4] It is thought that Whale Bone Alley was used as a central shrine by a number of different villages dotted along the eastern Chukotkan coast.

[4] The site is monumental by Chukotkan standards when compared with other early settlements such as Uelen, Ekven, Sireniki and Kivak,[6] and consists of several lines of whale skulls and jaw bones along the shoreline, several large pits behind them and a number of meat pits surrounding a central sanctuary and stone path around one third of the way along the site travelling from south to north.

[6] The site extends some 1800 feet (548 metres) along the northern coast of Yttygran Island[7] and lies on a major whale migration path,[5] and it is thought that the site was chosen partly because of the ease by which local people could kill and butcher a whale and also as a place where people could come together and trade on neutral ground in a forerunner to the fairs held during the period of cossack exploration of the region.