On a winter day in December 1986, 43-year-old Alexie Kopuk left Bethel, Alaska, on his snow machine bound for the village of Kwethluk. He was dressed for the cold in brown coveralls and a beaver hat. He never arrived.

Searchers followed snow machine tracks to the Kuskokwim River at a spot called Straight Slough, where the tracks led to a patch of open ice and stopped, suggesting the machine went through the ice. Kopuk himself was never found. The Alaska State Troopers investigated and the case remains open.

Few concrete details are available beyond the route, the clothing description, and the discovery at Straight Slough. Did anyone in the area at the time see Kopuk’s machine or notice conditions on the river that December?