By Courtney L. Anderson
SLIPPERY ROCK — Alaska officials Thursday ruled that a former area woman’s death Monday was caused by an animal mauling.
Candice Berner, 32, of Perryville, Alaska, formerly of Grove City and Slippery Rock, was killed Monday evening while running in Chignik Lake, a small village on the Alaska Peninsula.
Alaska State Troopers in a news release said “the animals most likely responsible for the attack are wolves.” An autopsy done Thursday confirmed that Miss Berner died from multiple injuries.
Officials investigated Miss Berner’s death to determine if she was indeed killed by the attack or died from some other cause and found by the animals.
A 1996 graduate of Grove City High School, Miss Berner received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in special education from Slippery Rock University in 2000 and 2008.
She was teaching in native Alaskan villages accessible only by plane or boat for a school district the size of West Virginia, said a feature on Miss Berner in the winter 2010 edition of SRU’s alumni magazine “The Rock.”
Miss Berner’s father, Dr. Robert Berner, on Wednesday told The Herald that his daughter had an “adventurous spirit” and was an energetic risk taker who cared about others.
In “The Rock,” Miss Berner had this to say about her big move:
“Living in bush Alaska isn’t for everyone. Besides entering a new culture, and often a new climate, bush living means ordering groceries through the mail, traveling on small planes with non-existent schedules and learning to live without coffee shops, restaurants, hair salons, malls and more.”
She told the magazine that she often ended up sleeping at school because of the weather.
Her father said she truly enjoyed living the subsistence lifestyle of the natives.
“One of the reasons I chose to move to Alaska was to experience a simpler lifestyle,” Miss Berner told “The Rock.”
She chronicled her adventures online, telling tales of encounters with wildlife — otters, caribou and killer whales among the creatures — and activities like mountain climbing and trapping. She wrote of what it was like teaching in a situation where a science class trip outdoors didn’t require permissions slips from parents and there’s no bell schedule to keep up with.
Prior to moving to Alaska, Miss Berner taught students with emotional disorders and worked with kids from Hispanic backgrounds at schools in California.
“She lived in 32 years what most people don’t accomplish in a lifetime,” Berner said. “She would’ve enriched a lot of other people’s lives.”
Troopers said the investigation into Miss Berner’s death is now closed, but they are assisting the Department of Fish and Game to address public safety concerns regarding wolf activity in that area.
Lake and Peninsula Borough School District Chief Operating Officer Rick Luthi said Miss Berner had just arrived in Chignik this week to work at the school there and had been with the district since August.
Her co-workers last saw her alive at the end of the workday Monday, Luthi said.
Local residents have been concerned about recent wolf activity in the area, but she probably didn’t know that because she had just gotten to town, Luthi said.
Miss Berner’s father said she was aware of the wolves. And her electronic journal mentions several trips to Chignik Lake in the prior months.
On her blog in December, she mentioned taking advantage of bears being in hibernation to go for long runs in Perryville and that doing so with two dogs made her feel safer on the trails.
Chignik Lake, with a population of roughly 100, is on the south side of the Alaska Peninsula about 475 miles southwest of Anchorage.
Wolf attacks on domestic animals in Alaska are not uncommon. A pack of wolves, at least some of them rabid, killed about a half-dozen sled dogs in Marshall in October 2007. But violent encounters with people are more rare.
“There’s only been one other case of a fatal wolf attack by a healthy, wild wolf in North America, and that happened in 2005 in northern Saskatchewan,” retired Fish and Game biologist Mark McNay said.
Miss Berner is survived by her father, Robert Berner of Slippery Rock, her mother Diana Berner of Grove City, and brothers Radley and Trent, both of California. Memorial arrangements are through Cunningham Funeral Home in Grove City.
Anchorage Daily News contributed to this report.
