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National News See other National News Articles Title: Lost dog makes 166-mile trek across frozen sea ice to be reunited with family In this photo provided by Mandy Iworrigan is Nanuq, in the middle with Brooklyn Faith, after the 1-year-old Australian shepherd was returned to Gambell, Alaska, on April 6, 2023, after it disappeared for a month and walked on the Bering Sea ice 150 miles to Wales, Alaska. On the left is Zoey with Starlight and on the right is Ty with Kujo. (Mandy Iworrigan via AP) In this photo provided by Mandy Iworrigan is Nanuq, in the middle with Brooklyn Faith, after the 1-year-old Australian shepherd was returned to Gambell, Alaska, on April 6, 2023, after it disappeared for a month and walked on the Bering Sea ice 150 miles to Wales, Alaska. On the left is Zoey with Starlight and on the right is Ty with Kujo. (Mandy Iworrigan via AP)AP facebook twitter Signed-in readers now can bookmark stories to read later. NEW! By Robert Higgs, cleveland.com ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A family dog that disappeared from an island in the Bering Sea turned up one month later on the Alaskan mainland after trekking more than 166 miles across ice. The dog, a 1-year-old Australian shepherd named Nanuq, was reunited with its family last week. Nanuq had a swollen leg, with large bite marks from an animal – perhaps from a seal or polar bear – but otherwise was in surprisingly good health, The Associated Press reported. You can see video of the reunion at an air strip in Savoonga that Nanuq’s owner, Mandy Iworrigan, posted to Facebook. The odyssey began when Mandy Iworrigan, Nanuq’s owner who lives in Gambell, Alaska, on St. Lawrence Island, was visiting relatives with her family in Savoogna, another island community. St. Lawrence Island, with about 1,500 residents, is the largest in the Bering Sea, covering less than 1,800 square miles. It is closer to Russia (about 40 miles northwest of Gambell) than it is to the Alaskan mainland and Nome, about 125 miles to the northeast. While they were gone, Nanuq disappeared from Gambell with another family dog named Starlight disappeared from home, the Anchorage Daily News reported. A few weeks later, Starlight turned up 37 miles away in Savoogna. “My girls went to go play out, and they said, ‘mom, mom, mom -- there’s a dog that looks like Starlight,’” Iworrigan told the Anchorage Daily News in an interview Monday. She didn’t think much of it, but the dog kept following her youngest daughter Zoe around, even trotting alongside a sled to stay close. “I was like, ‘Stop the snowmachine! Starlight! What are you doing in Savoonga?’” Iworrigan recounted. Somehow the dog had gotten herself three dozen miles to the next town over, 2-1/2 weeks since disappearing. But there was no sign of Nanuq, which means polar bear in Siberian Yupik. About a month after Nanuq disappeared, people began posting pictures online of a lost dog in Wales, a small village on the western Alaskan shore 150 miles from St. Lawrence Island. “My dad texted me and said, ‘There’s a dog that looks like Nanuq in Wales,’” Iworrigan told the Anchorage newspaper. She reactivated her Facebook account to see if it might be Nanuq. “I was like, ‘No freakin’ way! That’s our dog! What is he doing in Wales?’” The details of Nanuq’s journey remain a mystery. But Wales, at the far western edge of the Seward Peninsula, is a 166-mile straight shot from Gambell over plates of sea ice. “Maybe the ice shifted while he was hunting,” 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.” Iworrigan arranged to have Nanuq flown 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. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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