Episode summary:
I travelled way up north to Finnish Lapland to try my hand at sledding with huskies. Heaps of fun but much harder than it looks. The winter wonderland landscapes were stunningly beautiful and the dogs taught me a valuable life lesson about relinquishing control. If you are wondering ‘what is it like husky sledding in Lapland’ or ‘what are the best things to do in Finland during winter’ this podcast might give you some ideas. Just don’t forget to ask your husky guide how to make the dogs stop!
Listen to a podcast about husky-sledding in Finnish Lapland.
Transcript – S2 E2: Husky-sledding in Finnish Lapland
This week we are out of control in the Arctic and at the mercy of a pack of hounds.
The forest is in uproar. Two dozen Siberian huskies are baying and yelping. It’s a cacophony disrupting the snow-silenced winter forests of Finnish Lapland. I can barely hear the instructions being given by my local guide. She says something about steering and braking but it’s half drowned out by the dogs. The general idea, I think, is that I stand on the back of a long sled which will be pulled by six huskies. I lean left to take left-hand bends and right for right-hand ones. To brake I hop onto a horizontal strut which will dig a serrated metal bar into snow, bringing the sled to a graceful halt, hopefully in a cloud of dramatic snow crystals. How hard can it be? I’ve seen it on TV. Piece of cake.
I am, however, slightly concerned at the state of the huskies. They’re so agitated, I fear the husky guardian may have given them more rations than normal this morning. Either that or there’s a herd of Siberian cats nearby. Something is sending them bonkers. My guide tells me this is normal, that they live to run and can’t stand hanging about. I’m further alarmed to find she’s not joining me on my sled but has her own.
Let the midwinter madness begin
She lets rip a half-yodel/half-cry and I’m suddenly hanging on with all my might. She’s ahead of me and flying up the trail into the woods. Her sled is leaving a blizzard of snow and ice behind it that my dogs and I run straight into. I’m temporarily blinded. When the snowstorm clears my eyes are watering so much the tears are freezing on my face. Well, it is minus 18 degrees Celsius out here. We bolt up a slope through birch woods and onto a plateau. There are views for miles out over this pristine winter wonderland but I’m hit with more slipstream clouds of ice crystals and have to focus all my attention on keeping the sled upright.
This is madness and nothing at all like anything I’ve seen on TV where dogs scamper along at a reasonable pace and everyone’s smiling and happy and in perfect control of their sleds. I’m not smiling and I’m certainly not in control of mine. We plunge downhill on a single track trail back into more forest and across what looks like a small frozen lake then up another slope. It’s relentless. I try leaning left and right and even gentle braking but realise I have absolutely no power over the dogs or the sled.
Will the Mick Jagger huskies please slow down
The dogs combined strength is phenomenal. Sheer animal grit and determination. And teamwork apparently too. Certain dogs are the Mick Jaggers of the pack. They love to lead, get out front, be seen. While others are more the Charlie Wattses of the outfit preferring to be out of the limelight, hanging out in the second or third row, providing essential support and rhythm. We crest a hill so fast I swear my sled becomes airborne for a second. My guide whoops which only seems to make the dogs run faster. We must be doing 40 kilometres or 25 miles an hour but it feels like twice that. It’s all an Arctic blur.
I used to have a friend who drove like this, as fast as his car would go and with no regard whatsoever for any other vehicle on the road. Maybe he was descended from huskies. It’s strictly single file through the forest but my dogs, like my old friend, don’t care. They’re tailgating the guide’s sled, inches from her heels trying to overtake but they can’t surely. At either side of the trail are snow banks, trees and hidden boulders… and hibernating bears for all I know. There’s no way past.
My two Mick Jaggers are so close to my guide she sees them out of the corner of her eye. I see disaster and all of us ending up head first in snowdrifts any minute. “Brake!” she yells back at me and I jump up and thump down on the brake strut as hard as I can. No effect. No difference whatsoever. I jump again and try to bash down on it so it sinks into the snow. Nothing. My team are still flying along regardless, trying to shoulder charge my guide’s sled out of the way. I’m so out of control I lean slightly too far left on a bend and a snow-laden birch branch smacks me full in the face. My guide looks back as I yelp and I hear her laughing. I must now resemble a sledding snowman.
A valuable husky lesson
She cries out something to the dogs and both her team and mine finally start to ease back on the speed. Whatever she said, I wish she’d told me earlier. We reach a hilltop and she brings them all to a halt. My heart is still racing as we sit in the snow with the dogs, sip hot blueberry juice and gaze out over the stunning snowscape. It’s white for as far as we can see.
This is undoubtedly one of the most exhilarating, if not terrifying, experiences of my life. But I realise it’s also a valuable lesson. It’s teaching me that sometimes I need to relinquish control, let go and allow the huskies in my life to run free.
© copyright Matthew Brace
