KUSKOKUAK SLOUGH -- Dozens of volunteer searchers from three Western Alaska villages and the hub of Bethel traveled Sunday by snowmachine, four-wheeler and truck to a dangerous open hole on an offshoot of the Kuskokwim River, looking for three travelers feared dead under the ice.
They pulled one man's body from beneath the ice around 1 p.m., through a hole they cut with chainsaws, and prayed for safe recovery of the other two, a couple. Crews continued until dark to prod with poles and branches through other holes they cut into the ice of Kuskokuak Slough but couldn't find the missing man and woman.
Late Sunday night, Alaska State Troopers identified the man found frozen under the ice as Ralph Demantle. Searchers said he went by "Jimmy."
The trio was traveling from Bethel to Akiak on a single four-wheeler but it crashed through thin ice near the pond-sized open hole during a snowstorm late Thursday or early Friday, rescuers said. A crew pulled out the four-wheeler Saturday afternoon.
Willow branches stuck in the ice were intended to warn of the open hole and thin ice around it, but many had blown over and may have been hard to see at night in the snow. The Bethel Search and Rescue team on Sunday cut more willow trees from the river banks and stuck them in deeper. The rescue group has been warning people to be wary of open holes on the Kuskokuak Slough.
It's difficult to find even one person under frozen ice, and these crews were looking for three. Searches sometimes go on for weeks on rivers in rural Alaska, then resume in the spring once the ice melts. But many of those lost are never recovered.
The search will resume Monday, said Max Olick, the operation leader and village public safety officer for Kwethluk. The site was just up the slough from the turnoff to Kwethluk, about 18 miles upriver from Bethel. Searchers also came from Akiak and Akiachak, as well as Bethel.
Before searchers drove Demantle's body to Kwethluk, everyone stopped working. The chainsaws went quiet. Men took off their hats. Ickeley Charles, a church elder from Akiachak, said a prayer in Yup'ik.
"I asked our Lord to guide us," he said later. And he said quyana -- or "thanks" -- for leading them to Demantle.
Olick and other searchers spent hours Saturday cutting holes and prodding the slushy waters using a combination of elder knowledge, muscle power, machinery and high tech gadgets.
They fired up chainsaws and cut out blocks of ice 10 inches thick. They carved out parallel trenches and worked a long rope with big treble hooks tied to it from one trench to the other, then walked on the ice, dragging the rope underneath through the trench cuts.
Mike Riley, Bethel Search and Rescue president, sent an underwater camera into the dark water and some thought they spotted a glove below the ice. Another man used a metal detector in the hope it might find a zipper or buckle.
Some searchers spent hours shoveling ice from the cut holes to keep them clear. Others used long branches and poles with hooks on the other end to prod for anything that felt unusual. Eventually, the Bethel Search and Rescue team brought out a drag bar and tied more hooks to it. Crews pulled it under the ice with ropes.
The searchers spoke to each other mainly in Yup'ik.
"Nagtuq!" Carl Triplett, one of the searchers from Akiachak called out -- the Yup'ik word for "snag." The drag bar may have hit a log, he said.
Troopers have not yet identified the couple traveling with Demantle.
The trio was last seen Thursday night near Kwethluk, where they had stopped to warm up. Triplett said he was told they were advised to stay the night but took off despite the snowstorm. Troopers were alerted around 5 p.m. Friday that the travelers were overdue.
On Saturday, a trooper pilot who was following the four-wheeler's tracks spotted where it went through the ice, and a crew recovered the four-wheeler just downstream Saturday afternoon.
The effort Sunday grew from where the four-wheeler was found.
At the end of the day, the searchers stood in a circle. Larry Black of Bethel said a prayer that they all make it home safely, then everyone got on their snowmachines and four-wheelers or got into a truck, and they rode home along the ice road.