Joanne Barnaby: Woman and dog stalked by wolf, rescued by bear

Joanne Barnaby is making headlines for her story of survival involving mushrooms, a wolf, a mama bear and her cub, mosquitoes and a can of beer.

Barnaby was with her friend, Tammy Caudron, and her dog, Joey, near Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories of Canada last week when the two women became separated while picking mushrooms, CBC reported. As she returned to her truck, she heard a growl and turned around to see a wolf standing near her.

“I heard this growl behind me. There was a long, tall, very, very skinny wolf. A black wolf. And his legs were spread and his hair was standing, and he was growling and baring his teeth,” she told CBC.

Barnaby said the dog, Joey, attempted to charge the animal, but it didn’t work. She told CBC that the wolf began to attempt to separate the two and work on just one of them. “I think he was weak. He didn’t look healthy. He looked old to me. I don’t think he wanted to take us both on,” she said.

The two would be stalked by the wolf for 12 hours until finally around 4:30 a.m. Barnaby said she heard a loud noise and recognized that it was a mother bear and her cub.

“I heard this big crashing behind me and realized that the mama bear had attacked the wolf, or maybe the other way around, I don’t know, but they were fighting and I could hear the wolf yelping and I could hear the mama bear growling, and I could hear all this crashing and I just took off,” she said.

Barnaby and her friend’s dog were able to escape and make it back to the highway, where they were picked up by the authorities.

Agencies/Canadajournal