Kasigluk Search and Rescue has resumed looking for the body of Wassilie Keene, age 21. Kasigluk Search and Rescue President Wilson Twitchell says that the effort renewed a week and a half ago when ice began clearing out of Nanvarnaq Lake where Keene’s boat was found last fall.
Keene was last seen on October 24, 2018 and is presumed deceased from a boating accident. Winter halted the search for the missing man as ice overtook the lake, located 7 miles downriver of Kasigluk on the Johnson River.
Twitchell says that his crew has been searching the lake eight to 10 hours per day since breakup, using 3-D sonar to look for Keene’s body. The searchers have been snapping away what ice remains, using the bows of their boats as wedges and driving them into stress fractures to break apart the ice. The wind and current then carry the ice away.
Twitchell says that the effort could use more volunteers, and money for gas is always needed.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated the search for Wassilie Keene centered around Nunavakpak Lake. That information is incorrect. The search centered around Nanvarnaq Lake.
