Following my last story, a friend of mine compared me to Indiana Jones. I think this new story will prove him right... ;-))
We were preparing an evening coffee tour. Our guests sit on a long and large sled, called Pullmanki. We drive through the forest and stop in a big Sami tent (like a tepee) where we serve them tea, coffee, sandwiches and sometimes a salmon soup. We had 11 guests that evening and we needed 3 sleds to carry them. A male guide, my boss' wife and myself were the guides.
The male guide prepared his team on the left side of the yard, my boss' wife (I will call her CK for simplicity) was on the right side and I was in the middle. The male guide started first, then CK and finally my team.
CK started her team as I was still putting a backpack on. Then I unhooked my team and gave the command to my lead dog, Rambo, to go "Yah, yah Rambo, yah".
As the sled was going down hill, I saw people lying in the middle of the way. I hit the brake very hard and realised that CK's sled must have tilted, the guests had fallen off with CK who was now running in the middle of the road, trying to run after her dog team that had continued without her...
Within a split second, I realised that the only way to proceed was to try to catch her team with my team. I told my lead dog to go and screamed to CK to jump on my sled. I tried to slow down my team as much as I could as my 10 ten dogs were full of energy and eager to go fast and she managed to jump on the left runner of my sled. Trying to keep our balance while sharing the runners of the sled was proving a little difficult in a sharp left turn and on the bumpy forest trail but we were both hanging on, determined to catch up with her team .
Luckily, we found her team at a standstill about 500 meters further in the forest. The snow anchor had fallen off and had diged into the ground, forcing the team to stop.
I secured my team with my snow anchor and a rope around a tree and ran to get her guests who were still standing on the road where they had fallen off. Nobody was hurt and, as they were all young university students, they were laughing about the experience.
Once we got everybody back on her sled, I helped her to pull the sled backwards to slacken off the rope of the anchor so we could pull it off the ground. It took us a few attempts as her 11 dogs were pulling in the opposite direction, eager to be on the move again!
Later, CK thanked me for "saving her bacon" that evening. I felt happy I had now enough experience to react fast and be able to help in this kind of situations.
"Things will happen that you have never dreamt off"
Tuesday 20 January 2009
Sunday 4 January 2009
Two months have gone
I realised today that it has been over two months since my last post on my blog. The ”tourist” season started mid November for us and it’s been pretty much non-stop since then.
Lots of new challenges and when I look back at those two months, I realise how much I’ve grown in confidence. Driving on snow and ice, driving different cars from 8 seaters to pick ups including a subaru with a trailers loaded with 10 dogs with a big heavy sled on top, driving different kind of sleds in different weather conditions, for example on icy trails or in the darkness, learning how to make fire in the woods, learning the little tricks that make life easier for a musher. Those two months have been a BIG learning curve.
But also, each day in Lapland offers material for a movie. Love, hate, fun, drama... We’ve got it all here.
For example, I was enjoying a day off with my musher-boyfriend a few weeks ago, when we were about to start cooking dinner and got a call. One of our fellow musher had fallen in the river with his 8 dogs while training. He had been rescued by people in the surrounding area and was being driven back to our camp with his dogs. We forgot straight away our hunger and ran outside to prepare some warm food for the dogs and transform the garage in an emergency shelter. Heating device turned on, straw and reindeer skins on the floor, towels and warm food ready, we waited for the truck to arrive.
Our friend had lost feelings in his hands and the dogs were covered with ice, a couple of them were completely stiff. We took 6 dogs inside the garage and 2 in the cabin. A bucket of hot water was also prepared for the musher so he can quickly warm up his hands and feet. He had fallen into the water up to the waist. After some gentle stroking, the dog that was not moving, started moving its legs and lied down over me to share my body heat.
All the dogs ate the food we offered them which was a good sign. A few hours later, we put the dogs back in their dog yards. Our friend had been lucky as another musher last year had fallen into the river at the exact same place and had lost two dogs in the accident.
That’s for the drama. Now, let’s have some fun...
Tourists.... or guests as we call them as the first word is a ”bad” word in the industry. Well, we see all kind of people... Some really nice people who come for the dogs and are interested in the lifestyle... And some who don’t have any interest in the dogs and want to drive a sled like they would take a car for a test drive.
Over the last two months, I must admit I have stereotyped a little the nationalities. English and Chinese people do not seem to understand the instructions about keeping their foot on the brake in the early start of the tour. Our yard is up a hill. Then our dog teams run about 100 meters on a country road, then take a left turn in the forest. We always try our best to explain to our guests that the dogs run fast at the beginning and that they need to press the brake with their foot to keep control of the sled or they might fall off and lose their dog teams. The best instructions seem to be when our Swedish guide scares them a little and adds to his speech in a dead serious manner. ”If you don’t brake, you will fall, you will lose your dog team and I am not in the mood today to catch a loose dog team, so please use your brake.” His guests always seem to do better...
I had my little ”accident” too. I was driving a sled down to the forest for two guests, one of which would then take on the driver ”seat” and the other one would stay sited on the sled. The dog team was composed of Alaskan huskies from one of our guides. Those dogs are mostly trained for long distance races. They are fast and powerful... The ground was icy... I started from the back of the yard and felt the sled going further and further to the right where the inside corner of the downhill was. I did not react fast enough and the right runner went over the inside corner. The sled tilted to the left. Our guests fell off, I fell off but kept hanging to the sled, which is the number one rule when you fall off from your sled. As I was sliding down on my back, head down, legs and feet in the air, my boss was down on the road to stop any incoming vehicles and grabbed the lead dogs which had been slowed down by the snow ancre which was being dragged behind the sled. I got up, put the sled back up, feet on the brake and called my two guests who were just a little bruised on the left side of their bodies...
This lifestyle is really an adventure and as people have been telling me “things that you have never dreamt of will happen to you.”
Lots of new challenges and when I look back at those two months, I realise how much I’ve grown in confidence. Driving on snow and ice, driving different cars from 8 seaters to pick ups including a subaru with a trailers loaded with 10 dogs with a big heavy sled on top, driving different kind of sleds in different weather conditions, for example on icy trails or in the darkness, learning how to make fire in the woods, learning the little tricks that make life easier for a musher. Those two months have been a BIG learning curve.
But also, each day in Lapland offers material for a movie. Love, hate, fun, drama... We’ve got it all here.
For example, I was enjoying a day off with my musher-boyfriend a few weeks ago, when we were about to start cooking dinner and got a call. One of our fellow musher had fallen in the river with his 8 dogs while training. He had been rescued by people in the surrounding area and was being driven back to our camp with his dogs. We forgot straight away our hunger and ran outside to prepare some warm food for the dogs and transform the garage in an emergency shelter. Heating device turned on, straw and reindeer skins on the floor, towels and warm food ready, we waited for the truck to arrive.
Our friend had lost feelings in his hands and the dogs were covered with ice, a couple of them were completely stiff. We took 6 dogs inside the garage and 2 in the cabin. A bucket of hot water was also prepared for the musher so he can quickly warm up his hands and feet. He had fallen into the water up to the waist. After some gentle stroking, the dog that was not moving, started moving its legs and lied down over me to share my body heat.
All the dogs ate the food we offered them which was a good sign. A few hours later, we put the dogs back in their dog yards. Our friend had been lucky as another musher last year had fallen into the river at the exact same place and had lost two dogs in the accident.
That’s for the drama. Now, let’s have some fun...
Tourists.... or guests as we call them as the first word is a ”bad” word in the industry. Well, we see all kind of people... Some really nice people who come for the dogs and are interested in the lifestyle... And some who don’t have any interest in the dogs and want to drive a sled like they would take a car for a test drive.
Over the last two months, I must admit I have stereotyped a little the nationalities. English and Chinese people do not seem to understand the instructions about keeping their foot on the brake in the early start of the tour. Our yard is up a hill. Then our dog teams run about 100 meters on a country road, then take a left turn in the forest. We always try our best to explain to our guests that the dogs run fast at the beginning and that they need to press the brake with their foot to keep control of the sled or they might fall off and lose their dog teams. The best instructions seem to be when our Swedish guide scares them a little and adds to his speech in a dead serious manner. ”If you don’t brake, you will fall, you will lose your dog team and I am not in the mood today to catch a loose dog team, so please use your brake.” His guests always seem to do better...
I had my little ”accident” too. I was driving a sled down to the forest for two guests, one of which would then take on the driver ”seat” and the other one would stay sited on the sled. The dog team was composed of Alaskan huskies from one of our guides. Those dogs are mostly trained for long distance races. They are fast and powerful... The ground was icy... I started from the back of the yard and felt the sled going further and further to the right where the inside corner of the downhill was. I did not react fast enough and the right runner went over the inside corner. The sled tilted to the left. Our guests fell off, I fell off but kept hanging to the sled, which is the number one rule when you fall off from your sled. As I was sliding down on my back, head down, legs and feet in the air, my boss was down on the road to stop any incoming vehicles and grabbed the lead dogs which had been slowed down by the snow ancre which was being dragged behind the sled. I got up, put the sled back up, feet on the brake and called my two guests who were just a little bruised on the left side of their bodies...
This lifestyle is really an adventure and as people have been telling me “things that you have never dreamt of will happen to you.”
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