AUSTRALIAN SHEPHERD NANUQ RETURNS HOME AFTER AN ALASKAN SEA-ICE ODYSSEY
Source: ABC News (Extract)
Posted: April 13, 2023
Nanuq, a one-year-old Australian shepherd, has taken an epic trek across 241 kilometres of frozen Bering Sea ice, a journey that included being bitten by a seal or polar bear, before he was safely returned to his home in Alaska.
Last month, Mandy Iworrigan — Nanuq’s owner, who lives in Gambell, Alaska — and her family were visiting Savoogna, another St Lawrence Island community on the Bering Strait, when Nanuq disappeared with their other family dog, Starlight, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
Starlight turned up 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, 241km north-east of Savoonga, on Alaska’s western 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’,'” Ms Iworrigan said.
She reactivated her Facebook account to see if it might be her wandering hound.
The events of Nanuq’s journey will likely always be a mystery.
“I have no idea why he ended up in Wales. Maybe the ice shifted while he was hunting,” Ms Iworrigan said.
“I’m pretty sure he ate leftovers of seal or caught a seal. Probably birds, too. He eats our native foods. He’s smart.”
She used airline points to get her dog back to Gambell on a regional air carrier last week, a charter that was transporting athletes for the Bering Strait School District’s Native Youth Olympics tournament.
Ms Iworrigan filmed the happy reunion when the plane landed at the air strip in Savoonga, with both she and her daughter, Brooklyn, shrieking with joy.
Except for a swollen leg, with large bite marks from an unidentified animal, Nanuq was in pretty good health.
“Wolverine, seal, small Nanuq, we don’t know, because it’s like a really big bite,” she said.
