Native American Heritage Month: Walter Hawk

In honor of Native American Heritage Month I’m featuring a Native American missing person for every day in the month of November. Today’s missing person is Walter Hawk, who disappeared from Tuluksak, a Yupik village in Alaska, on July 13, 2016, at the age of 43. He is considered a vulnerable adult and apparently had a habit of wandering.

Hawk left a relative’s home in the early morning hours and never returned. Frustratingly, searchers actually saw him when they were combing through the wilderness, but he would vanish again before they could make contact. Like, they’d be in a plane or a kayak, and they’d see him walking along, but a good distance away, miles even, and they couldn’t get to him.

Apparently Hawk had a good set of legs on him and good wilderness survival skills; he was capable of making it on his own for some time. But two winters have passed and we’re going into a third now, and I don’t think he can still be alive in the bush.