Breakup has begun in Elim. Village officials are warning residents to stay off the sea ice as they travel around the Eastern Norton Sound and the southern coast of the Seward Peninsula.
“We have to travel inland now if you want to go the Golovin way,” said Robert Keith of the Elim IRA Office. “And you’d have to be pretty daring to go travel toward Koyuk on the ice from Elim.”
Keith said ice conditions deteriorated over the weekend with high winds and warmer temperatures.
“We’ve got a lot of loose ice that broke up,” he said. “It’s melting really bad and really quick over here.”
While ice is still solid near Moses Point, a spit located east of Elim, Keith said most shorefast ice is already starting to break away — something that usually happens in May.
“I think it’s probably three weeks or maybe four weeks early,” he said.
For safety, village officials are urging snowmachiners to use overland trails when traveling to and from Elim.
One snowmachiner has already gone missing while traveling between Elim and Koyuk. Local residents are still searching for Roger Hannon of Koyuk, who went missing two weeks ago in blizzard conditions. Searchers found his snowmachine in open water on the edge of the sea ice east of Elim.
