Up and Vanished Tenderfoot TV

Often Nome, Alaska is claimed to be settled by gold miners, but Alaska Natives have been in the sub-arctic area for thousands of years. It is also unfortunately the site of a disproportionately high number of missing Indigenous and Native Alaskan women. When Up and Vanished host, Payne Lindsey, receives a tip from one of his producers about Florence Okpealuk, an Alaskan native who went missing in 2020, he is drawn to the mystery of her disappearance. As Payne begins his research, he finds an email from Okpeluk's family asking him to cover her case, and is compelled to continue. He will soon learn the difficulty of covering a case in the Land of the Midnight Sun as he begins his journey northward to Nome.


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Florence Okpealuk is not the first Alaska Native to go missing from Nome. Seventeen years prior, Sonya Ivanoff was reported missing by her roommates and was found murdered. The crime has forever left a mark on the relationship between the community and the local police department. Payne arrives in Nome and learns that not much has changed since Ivanoff's tragic end. He connects with journalist and Alaska Native, Alice Qannik Glenn, who shares how the story inspired her journalism and changed the way she viewed the world.


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Talking with locals in Nome, Payne begins to make some progress in finding out who one of the last people to have seen Florence alive is. New accounts of interactions with the miner living on West Beach have led to the uncovering of a man with a nickname that a lot of the town have heard about.


Follow the show on Instagram: @upandvanished
Subscribe to Tenderfoot+ for ad-free listening, exclusive bonuses and early access starting on 2/23. {apple.co/upandvanished}

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A tip received from a local Nomite sends Payne down the rabbit hole to uncover the sender of texts which claim to know exactly what happened to Florence Okpealuk in a tent on West Beach.


Follow the show on Instagram: @upandvanished
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Payne and his producers beginning planning the best way to get closer to Oregon Jon, with internet sleuthing they eventually discover a trail to go down uncovering hints at how to get close enough to talk to him.


Follow the show on Instagram: @upandvanished
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After messaging him from a fake Facebook account, Payne sets up to meet with the person he wants to talk with the most; Oregon Jon. Deciding to bring along a few of his producers, Payne sets up as many recording devices around the bar as he can in order to covertly capture the full encounter. Can Payne keep up the ruse or will Oregon Jon catch on?


Follow the show on Instagram: @upandvanished
Subscribe to Tenderfoot+ for ad-free listening, exclusive bonuses and early access. {apple.co/upandvanished}

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

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