A search and rescue operation between Deering and Nome ended successfully after an approximately 12-hour search between the communities, troopers revealed in the trooper dispatch.

According to the report, troopers and the Northwest Arctic Borough Search and Rescue Office were informed of an overdue traveller, identified as 34-year-old Ingram Melton, who had not shown up in Deering as expected on Tuesday.

Melton had departed Nome at 6 am on Monday on a four-wheel ATV with intentions of traveling to Deering over one hundred miles distant on the winter trail.

The trooper dispatch reports that “Alaska State Troopers in Nome dispatched search and rescue volunteers in a helicopter to begin searching from the point last known in Nome covering the winter trail towards Deering.” Searchers in the air and on the ground searched the trail to within 30 miles south of Deering without success.[xyz-ihs snippet=”adsense-body-ad”]Searchers from the community of Deering, on snow machines, worked the trail south of Deering, and at 8:45 pm on Tuesday located the missing traveller within 20 miles of the community. Melton was cold, wet and on foot when found.

Melton was transported to Deering, where he underwent a medical evaluation at the Maniilaq Clinic, then lodged.

Named after the schooner Abbie M Deering that was present when the supply station was founded in 1901, Deering, with its population of just over 120, is located on a sandy spit on the northern shores of the Seward Peninsula, approximately 57 miles south of Kotzebue.[xyz-ihs snippet=”Adsense-responsive”]

  Alaska, atv, deering, ingram melton, nome, search and rescue, traveller, winter trail