Alaska News

Snowmachiner gets home for Christmas after plunging into frigid Norton Sound

On Christmas Eve, 31-year-old Kellen Katcheak found himself walking in temperatures in the teens, wet after falling into Norton Sound and in search of a way home to his wife and children, according to Alaska State Troopers.

Katcheak's journey started with a flight from Stebbins to Unalakleet, two Western Alaska communities separated by about 52 air miles, to pick up a new Polaris 600 Voyager snowmachine. Heavy objects typically get handled by the Unalakleet airport, and buyers in the region must travel there to pick them up, said trooper Honie Culley, based in Nome.

The plan was that Katcheak would leave Unalakleet on his new snowmachine at 11 a.m. Wednesday and arrive home in Stebbins about six hours later. But he didn't make it on time. His wife called troopers around 9:30 p.m., Culley said.

"She didn't know if the snowmachine was having engine problems and there was hardly any snow on the trail, so she just didn't know what happened," Culley said.

There are no roads linking Stebbins and Unalakleet. Most winters, if the ice is thick enough, snowmachiners travel between the communities across Norton Sound. If the ice is thin, they typically drive closer to shore.

Robert Murders, a meteorological technician with the National Weather Service in Nome, said that while the area's average temperature this December hasn't been much warmer than normal, a consistent northerly wind has kept ice on Norton Sound moving and prevented it from thickening.

Katcheak, Culley said, wasn't familiar with the trail back to Stebbins.

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Culley took the call from Katcheak's wife, Marlene, Wednesday evening and told the Unalakleet Search and Rescue coordinator, along with several volunteers, that a search was needed, she said.

In Unalakleet, temperatures hovered around 16 degrees Wednesday night with a wind chill near zero.

Around 10 p.m., a member of the St. Michael Search and Rescue team heard a radio distress call from Katcheak. He said he was safe in a cabin near Golsovia, about 40 miles up the coast from Stebbins, which is about 120 miles southeast of Nome.

Katcheak reported he had been driving his snowmachine on Norton Sound but the ice was unstable so he headed inland. Near the mouth of the Golsovia River, he and the machine broke through the ice into the water, Culley said.

"(He) had to wade through slush and ice to get to shore, and he and his clothing were soaked with water," wrote Culley in a trooper dispatch posted online Friday.

He walked about a mile to a cabin that once housed a guide service. It wasn't inhabited, but it had heat and electricity, she said.

"He said that when he was walking on the beach to the cabin he was cramping up really bad, and he said that he almost gave up but was just thinking of his children at home," Culley said. "It was Christmas Eve, and he just couldn't not make it home for Christmas."

At the cabin, it took Katcheak about four hours to power a generator outside and call for help. He forced open the cabin door and waited inside.

At 4 a.m. Katcheak was picked up by two people on snowmachines and brought to St. Michael, about five miles from Stebbins. He reported no injuries, Culley said.

By 8:30 Christmas morning, according to the dispatch, Katcheak was home with his wife and children.

Tegan Hanlon

Tegan Hanlon was a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News between 2013 and 2019. She now reports for Alaska Public Media.

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