Oriented thaw lakes are a somewhat rare, spectacular natural phenomena, occurring in only a select number of places around the globe. Thousands of these lakes can be found on the Arctic Coastal Plain of northern Alaska and north-western Canada. These thaw lakes develop on top of continuous permafrost, all adopting a similar orientation, and are the dominant landforms across much of the landscape. The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between dominant wind direction and the formation of oriented thaw lakes. With the aid of Landsat 7 ETM+ mosaics over 800 oriented thaw lakes were identified on the Arctic Coastal Plain, Alaska, for investigation. In addition, over 1000 lakes were identified on the Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula, North West Territories, Canada.