In the Bering Strait, two small islands sit only a few miles apart, yet they operate on different calendar days. One belongs to Alaska. The other belongs to Russia. The water between them is narrow, but the time gap created by the International Date Line is almost a full day.
Where Tomorrow Sits Next Door To Yesterday
Image via Wikimedia Commons/Dave Cohoe
The two islands are Little Diomede (in the United States) and Big Diomede (in Russia). They are separated by roughly 2.4 miles of ocean, with the International Date Line running directly between them. Due to that line, Big Diomede is as much as 21 hours ahead of its neighbor. Leaving Little Diomede on a Monday morning means arriving—at least in theory—on a Tuesday on Big Diomede.
Life On The Edge Of Two Calendars
Only one of these islands feels like a town. Little Diomede is home to a small Inupiat community, featuring a school, a post office, a single store, and not much else. Supplies and mail arrive by helicopter when the weather allows, because there is no year-round harbor and no road to the rest of Alaska.
Life here revolves heavily around subsistence. Families hunt marine mammals and fish, share what they catch, and ride out long stretches of fog, ice, and isolation. The village hangs on because this is home and because people still feel connected to relatives across that narrow water.
Before the Cold War, Inupiat families would cross between the islands for visits, trade, and seasonal hunting, as if the border did not exist. When the Soviet Union militarized Big Diomede in the late 1940s, residents on that side were moved to mainland Chukotka. The “Ice Curtain” nickname became painfully literal here. Families that once treated the Strait as a shared backyard suddenly needed international agreements, visas, and a lot of luck just to reconnect.
Big Diomede, The Military Outpost
Image via Wikimedia Commons/Ansgar Walk
Big Diomede looks close enough to touch on a clear day, but civilian life there ended decades ago. Soviet authorities established a military base, moved Indigenous residents away in 1948, and turned the island into a fenced border zone. It also marks the easternmost point of Russia.
As of 2025, the island is home to Russian border guards and support staff. Whenever American and Russian leaders meet in Alaska, coverage often points back to these islands as an indication that the two countries share an extremely literal neighborhood.
Can Anyone Actually Cross The Gap?
Physically, yes. Politically, no.
In the depths of winter, sea ice can form a frozen bridge between Big and Little Diomede. In milder months, a strong swimmer, kayaker, or rower could cover 2.4 miles with the right support. The American swimmer Lynne Cox did exactly that in 1987 by taking a little over two hours in near-freezing water to swim from Little Diomede to Big Diomede as a peace gesture at the tail end of the Cold War.
For everyone else, the crossing is off-limits. Traveling directly between the islands means crossing a tightly controlled international border between the United States and Russia, and attempting to do so without clearance violates the laws of both countries. Even in peak winter, when the sea looks like a solid white highway, the real barriers are legal, political, and safety-related.
So the idea of walking into tomorrow stays mostly theoretical. The closest most people get is staring at satellite images, photos, or the rare news crew footage that shows village houses on one island and a time zone jump just across the water.