Alaska News

2 die attempting to skip snowmachines across Kobuk River

Open water has claimed its first victims as Alaska Bush residents start the transition in travel from the four-wheel, all-terrain-vechiles of summer to the snowmachines of winter.

Alaska State Troopers report that Brandon and Roger Cleveland of Ambler were simply trying to make it home from a fishing trip on Tuesday when they drowned in the Kobuk River. They'd left the village to set fish traps.

There is now ice on the Kobuk River, but there are also patches of open water. Such conditions are normal in much of rural Alaska this time of year. According to Ambler residents, Brandon, 21, and Roger, 29, came to a patch of open water and tried to cross it.

"Witnesses say the men tried to 'skip' the open water," troopers reported, "but the white Arctic Cat snowmachine failed to make the other side." Water skipping is a stream and river crossing technique familiar to nearly all who ride snow machines in rural Alaska. It relies on the speed of the snow machine to get one safely across. If a driver is going fast enough when he leaves the last of the safe ice behind, and if the open water before him is small enough, the snow machine will safely speed over the water to safe ice without anyone getting their feet wet.

But if the speed is too slow, or weight of the machine is too great, the consequences of failure are extreme, especially when crossing flowing water.

A trooper dispatcher said, "A witness attempted to throw a rope to the men, but the current (of the Kobuk) was too strong." The Clevelands were pushed downstream and under water.

Even though the accident happened around 1 a.m., troopers said volunteer searchers from Ambler were able to launch a boat, reach the Clevelands, and pull their limp bodies from the river.

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"CPR was attempted; however, the efforts failed," the agency reported. At 3 a.m., about an hour after the accident, a village public safety officer in Ambler pronounced the men dead. They were the first Alaska snowmachine fatalities of the 2011-12 winter. They are unlikely to be the last.

Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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