Nanuq arrives home dog-tired after 150-mile odyssey across sea ice

In this photo provided by Mandy Iworrigan, is Nanuq, a 1-year-old Australian shepherd, after it was returned to Gambell, Alaska, on April 6, 2023. The dog disappeared a month ago from St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, and wound up walking on the Bering Sea ice about 150 miles to Wales, Alaska, on the state’s western coast. (Mandy Iworrigan via AP)

A one-year-old pet dog took an epic trek across 150 miles of frozen Bering Sea ice, being bitten by a seal or polar bear before being returned safely to his home in Alaska.

Mandy Iworrigan – owner of Australian shepherd Nanuq, 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.

Starlight turned up a few weeks later, but Nanuq, which means polar bear in Siberian Yupik, was nowhere to be found.

I’m pretty sure he ate leftovers of seal or caught a seal. Probably birds too. He eats our Native foods. He’s smart

About a month after Nanuq disappeared, people in the community of Wales, 150 miles 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.

“I was like, ‘No freakin’ way! That’s our dog! What is he doing in Wales?’” she said.

The details of Nanuq’s journey are likely to remain a mystery.

“I have no idea why he ended up in Wales. Maybe the ice shifted while he was hunting,” Ms Iworrigan said.

The family welcome Nanuq home (Mandy Iworrigan/AP)

“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 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.