One-year-old Australian shepherd Nanuq, middle with Brooklyn Faith, was returned to Gambell, Alaska, on April 6 after disappearing for a month and walking on the ice of the Bering Sea 150 miles to Wales, Alaska. On the left is Brooklyn Faith’s sister, Zoey with Starlight and on the right is Ty’s brother with Kujo.
Mandy Iworrigan via AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Mandy Iworrigan via AP
One-year-old Australian shepherd Nanuq, middle with Brooklyn Faith, was returned to Gambell, Alaska, on April 6 after disappearing for a month and walking on the ice of the Bering Sea 150 miles to Wales, Alaska. On the left is Brooklyn Faith’s sister, Zoey with Starlight and on the right is Ty’s brother with Kujo.
Mandy Iworrigan via AP
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A one-year-old Australian shepherd made an epic trek across 150 miles (241 kilometers) of frozen Bering Sea ice that included being bitten by seals or a polar bear before being safely returned to his home in Alaska.
Mandy Iworrigan, Nanuq’s owner who lives in Gambell, Alaska, and her family were visiting Savoogna, another St. Lawrence Island community in the Bering Strait, last month when Nanuq disappeared with -their other family dog, Starlight, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
The starlight came out a few weeks later, but Nanuq, which means polar bear in Siberian Yupik, was nowhere to be found.
About a month after Nanuq disappeared, people in Wales, 150 miles (241 kilometers) northeast of Savoonga on Alaska’s west coast, began posting pictures online of what they described as a lost dog.
“My dad texted me and said, ‘There’s a dog that looks like Nanuq in Wales,'” Iworrigan said.
She reactivated her Facebook account to see if it could be her wandering hound.
“I was like, ‘No freakin’ way! That’s our dog! What’s he doing in Wales?'” she said.
Nanuq
Mandy Iworrigan via AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Mandy Iworrigan via AP
The events of Nanuq’s journey will probably always remain a mystery.
“I have no idea why he ended up in Wales. Maybe the ice changed while he was hunting,” Iworrigan said. “I’m pretty sure he ate seal scraps or caught a seal. Probably birds, too. He eats our Native food. He’s smart.”
She used airline points to bring her dog back to Gambell on a regional air carrier last week, a charter that was transporting athletes to the Indigenous Youth Olympics tournament in Bering School District.
Iworrigan filmed the happy reunion when the plane landed at the air strip in Savoonga, both she and her daughter Brooklyn screaming with joy.
Except for a swollen leg, with large bite marks from an unidentified animal, Nanuq was in fairly good health.
“Wolverine, seals, little otters, we don’t know, because it’s like a really big bite,” she said.
