Rookie Musher's Native Words Save Team from Bison

0:00From the Daily News Now Network, this is Corey, with Anchorage News Today. A rookie mushroom on the Idyterod Trail faced a scary standoff with a wild bison this week. 48-year-old Jody Potts, Joseph from Fairbanks, was running her dog team near the back of the pack when they ran into the animal. Her pistol jammed and wouldn't fire, leaving her without a way to defend her team. She left their own checkpoint around 3.35 pm on Tuesday and stopped about 15 minutes later. The bison charged several times, head down and pawing the ground, but stayed back from the dogs. Potts. Joseph hid behind trees, threw sticks, and then remembered a story from her grandmother. Her grandmother once used words from their hand-gwitch in native language to calm a bear in the wilderness. Those words mean go away and have mercy on us. Potts. Joseph spoke them to the bison as a last resort, and it turned and ran up a hill. No dogs were hurt, and the delay lasted less than an hour according to tracking data. She credits the native words for saving them, saying animals seem to understand the language.

1:04As of Thursday, Potts Joseph rested in 33rd place in McGrath. She's the first mushroom of hand-gwitch in heritage to start the race and mom to model quana chasing horse, who shared support online. The daily news now is made possible with support from our sponsor. No need to switch positions. The sound is already where your head is. S-O-L-I-SOLY-PILLOW.com