New day, new challenge

After learning to drive the ATV through VERY VERY deep mud, after training the dogs in the forest on my own, came the ultimate challenge of Driving on Ice.

Less agile and beautiful than the celebraties who skate on ice, Stephanie Driving on Ice can be as spectacular and funny...

It was snowing this morning... More than the previous days... The Swedish guide walked into my cabin this morning, warning me that roads were VERY slippery and asked me if I knew how to slow down the engine without using the brakes. Having had a "car racing" boyfriend for a few years, I nodded with confidence. And then I went onto the road with my blue Volkswagen van...

I was driving slowly and I was smiling with excitement about this new experience. I come from an area by the coast with very mild weather. It snows about every 10 years and the only memories of driving on snow were when I was 11 years old when my dad drove us into a ditch on the countryside road leading to my grand-parents house and when the driving instructor failed me during my driving test for not driving fast enough on an icy road.

So everything was going fine... I even passed the first roundabout without any problems. Then, came a 90 degrees turn. I thought I was driving fairly slowly but it turned out that it was probably a little too fast for that turn in icy conditions. The car only went 60 degrees left, heading right for the security fence, so I turned the wheels more to the left, then to the right , which worked, but then, the car kept heading to the left, this time in the direction of a high separation curb with another fence... Deep breath... A bit of steering on the right finally put the van in the right direction. Very deep breath...

I was followed closely by 2 other cars who must have seen the back of my van swinging from right to left then to the right again in less than 4 meters... I was now thinking, "Ok, I've experienced driving on ice, now stop it, it's not funny".

Then, as I was coming towards a green light in Kiruna... it turned red. I panicked a little and hit the brakes... Big mistake... The car kept going, the brakes sounded like they were scratching the road surface... I almost ended up right in the middle of a big junction... Rear gear on and I was back into position by the red light... Thank god there were no cars behind me! Brakes are definitely useless in icy conditions. I should have remembered that from using my bicycle brakes on a snowy road in London which ended up in a big slide on my bottom across the road...

Hopefully, I will have lots of practice by the time I start driving the tourists around... ;-)

Winter has arrived

Winter has arrived. It started snowing a little on Monday morning, followed by some small snow flakes every morning of the week. I've added a layer of clothing when training the dogs in the afternoon as temperatures are around 0 degrees.

Roads are also getting icy so no more speeding when I'm late for school in the morning. ;-)

It's been just over a month and I'm starting to see the results of hard work. The Swedish guide with whom I now train the dogs has told me that I can start training the dogs on my own. 12 dogs per team over 15 kms of forest and wetland. It felt like passing a grade... It felt good. :-)

Dogs are also starting to respect me, although a specific dog yard is still a problem as I can't get one dog out without the other 3 escaping at the same time! As soon as I approach their dog yard door, they're like Londoners standing at the gate of Victoria Underground station. They will push you and run you over if you stand in their way! The only comfort is that the Swedish guide doesn't always get "one" dog out too. So even the best can get it wrong.

After about 4 weeks of Swedish classes, I'm starting to speak and understand a little but I keep mixing German and Swedish words! And I've been told my English and French are getting worse... Oops... Oh well... Nobody's perfect...