Husky Heaven

We had an early start this morning, well before the sun came up, to venture out into the Arctic Circle for a husky ride. It is so bizarre showing up for an excursion starting at 9am and it is still dark.

Brad had a bad fall as we were making our way to the meeting point and has injured his ribs quite badly. On advice of our guide he unfortunately had to opt out of the sled ride and thankfully the guide was able to go with me and be the driver.

The huskies are so well looked after and make quite a racket while waiting to run. They howl and bark and wag their tails knowing they are about to be free to run. It was such an exhilarating experience and also very handy having the guide with me as he gave me so much information about the dogs.

The huskies here are Alaskan huskies and can look quite different to the Siberian huskies we are all familiar with. The front two dogs are the steering dogs who know the route, the back two dogs are the engine, and the dog in the middle is a great all round team mate. A lot of work and assessment goes into putting g the right team together.

The fact I loved the most was that even though there are about 90 dogs at the site, each dog is named with each litter being named after a certain theme. One might be based on Harry Potter characters and more fittingly, characters from the Ice Age.

Our ride was about 5km through the woods and over the frozen river and our team were eager to go. Unfortunately the team in front were a bit slow so we had to slow our team down regularly and whenever we had to stop the dogs would roll around in the snow having a great time.

At the end of the ride we were allowed to pat the dogs and reward them for their good work. Some of the dogs were so cuddly and it was lovely petting them. Riding over the snow covered ground and river, under the trees in the “early” morning light, dark against the grey sky, this was such an amazing experience.Read more