At the Twisted Creek Café in Talkeetna a missing poster of Melanie Gould hangs by the door. Inside a friend is working on her laptop, updating a Facebook page with the latest on the search.
“We will get people who say they think they saw her here, they think I saw her there,” says Amanda Olson, a longtime friend. “It’s really just different ideas from people about what has happened to her.” The alarm bells for Gould started last week when she failed to show up at one of her two jobs at the Talkeetna Roadhouse. Friends and co-workers said that simply wasn’t like her. Also out of character was the fact that the seven-time Iditarod musher had left a kennel full of dogs unattended. “She absolutely was devoted to those dogs,” says another long time friend, Amanda Randles. “She's always made sure they are covered even for little things-it just does not mesh up.” What troopers do know is that Gould was last seen gassing up her truck at a local station at about 3 a.m. Tuesday on May 31. Friends reported her missing the following day. By the time troopers found her truck on a wilderness road more than 100 miles away, it was Saturday-she’d had five days to disappear. “The truck was undamaged and it seemed to run so we presume she walked away from the truck on her own,” says Talkeetna Trooper Shayne Calt. “It wasn’t broken down or anything like that and we haven't seen her since.” Troopers are searching an area outside Cantwell that could conceivably cover hundreds of miles. They say it’s quite possible that Gould is still alive.
