A bush dog from a small First Nations community in the Yukon recently found itself on an unusual journey thousands of kilometers away from home.
Kluane First Nation Elder Alyce Johnson is the owner of five-year-old pitbull mix Midnight. The pair live in the community of Burwash Landing, population 70, about two hours from the Alaskan border.
Johnson and Midnight share a close bond being on the land together.
“Dogs are a human’s best friend, you know, but this is more than that – they’re family,” she told APTN News.
But Johnson and Midnight’s bond was broken last month.
While out of town, Johnson left Midnight with her daughter’s family. They were hunting at their camp at Duke River a few kilometers north of Burwash.
At some point, Midnight wandered away as she usually does.
But this time she didn’t come back.
Midnight’s disappearance led to a community search by foot, boat and even air.
Johnson assumed the worst, at one point telling family members to bring a plastic container in case the dog’s body was discovered.
That was until she got a phone call from an animal hospital in Kingman, Arizona.
Staff there were able to identify Midnight’s owner through her microchip. Midnight was alive and well – though she was almost 5,000 kilometers from Burwash Landing.
“The word that has come up continuously – has been bizarre,” Johnson said.
A dog’s “bizarre” 5,000 kilometer journey
As it turns out, an American man travelling through Alaska, David Kerlin, had spotted Midnight on his journey back to the U.S. The dog was wandering around the road without a collar.
Kerlin said the dog appeared to be hungry and dehydrated and was wandering up to cars. He said as there were no houses nearby and he wasn’t sure what to do, so decided to give the dog a ride.
“It didn’t seem like it was going somewhere. It felt like it was a stray, or it had been abandoned, or something like that,” he told APTN.
“I didn’t know what else to do, where to take it, so I just kept driving with it on my way.”
Despite not having paperwork for the dog, Kerlin said he was able to take Midnight over the border without issue.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of Aug. 1, the only required documentation for dogs being transported from Canada to the U.S. is an import form.
After crossing the border, Kerlin said he called his sister who is a veterinarian. She suggested he take the dog to get checked for a microchip.
Kerlin took Midnight to the animal hospital in Kingman, which contacted Johnson, who didn’t answer right away.
After waiting some time without a response, Kerlin said the veterinarian told him to take the dog to a local shelter.
However, he said shelter staff there told him they could only take dogs belonging to that county, and if the dog was surrendered it would likely be put down if no one came to get it.
Kerlin said he didn’t want that.
“We were getting along fine. I couldn’t keep the dog forever, but, you know, I was hoping to find at least a place where they had like a no-kill shelter or something like that, or holding out hope that maybe the owner would give us a call.”
Kerlin said he continued on with his journey as he figured out next steps. He and Johnson were eventually able to make contact while he was travelling through Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Johnson said she never would have thought Midnight would be located outside of Burwash, much less in the United States.
“You can imagine that (Midnight) thought – after 10 days of traveling through the cities, big cities, small towns – that she would never see us again. But that chip saved her,” she said.
Kerlin said he helped coordinate Midnight’s return by driving her back roughly 675 kilometers from Albuquerque to Phoenix, Arizona, where he dropped her off at a pet hotel.
Johnson’s family helped arrange for Midnight to be picked up by a pet limousine the next day where she was driven 1,500 kilometers north to Blaine, Washington, where the Canadian-U.S. border is located.
Johnson and Midnight were reunited on Oct. 6 and are now back in Burwash.
“A lot of collective prayers went forth before her, and she came home, she’s so happy,” Johnson said.
Man who picked up dog glad there’s a ‘happy ending’
While Johnson is relieved Midnight returned to Burwash safe and sound, she’s unhappy with the fact Kerlin didn’t try to find her sooner – something she said could have saved a lot of heartbreak.
“He made a comment, which I found very unusual, he said, ‘I’m really happy to know that I’m reuniting you with your dog, that I’m bringing you two together.’ Technically, that’s not the case, because you would have left the dog in Whitehorse or at the nearby community, and that’s the responsibility of individuals who find dogs,” she said.
Kerlin said he understands the situation was “frustrating” for Johnson.
“I feel like, because of the unique situation where I was transient in the area, you know, I was on a road trip – I think it would have been different if I was a local who had found Midnight on the road,” he said.
“But because I was on a road trip and I didn’t really know what else to do with the dog, by the time (Johnson) and I were able to speak to each other, you know, make any sort of contact – I was extremely far away.”
Kerlin said looking back, he probably should have asked more questions about the dog and taken it to a shelter while still in the Yukon.
“I guess it just didn’t occur to me that there was someone nearby, because my own mental state was, ‘I’m very far away from my destination. I’m in the middle of, you know, an area I’m not familiar with.’ But I guess I just projected that onto the dog,” he said.
Kerlin said he never intended to cause Midnight and her owner harm.
“I only wanted the dog to be taken care of. I wanted it out of a dangerous roadway,” he said.
Kerlin said he’s glad the situation turned out to have a “happy ending” and that he’s reached out to Johnson in hopes of “clearing the air.”
“I don’t want to leave the situation worse than I found it. That was not my intent. I was just trying to help with what I thought was a stranded dog,” he said.
Johnson said her focus now is reuniting Midnight with Burwash and the land.
“The last couple of days, we’ve just taken our time to rest, to be on the land. I know she’s anxious to be here, and she loves it. So here we are, and we’re both happy.”
