Heading at 683400N, 1610600W in the De Long Mountains at the confluence of Kogruk Creek and Tupik Creek and flowing N, NE, and then NW, to Kasegaluk Lagoon and the Arctic Ocean, 20 mi SW of Icy Cape, Arctic Plain.
Utoqaq is the Eskimo name for "Icy Cape" and means "old" or "ancient." The name of the river appears to have been first mentioned by Lieutenant Zagoskin (1847, p. 74), Imperial Russian Navy (IRN), when he referred to the Utukak-myut, or Utukak people, "on river of same name." Zagoskin received this information from kAshevarov whose Creole guide, Utuktak, drew a map of the coast south of Point Barrow in 1838. The name was published in 1899 by U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (USC&GS) as "Ootokok River."