Mad about huskies

The Big Great White

2011-01-25T18:27:00.002+01:00

I guess it was time to take my guiding experience to the next level as my boss had decided to send me on a week tour, which meant traveling to "far far away" camps where I have been only once before... However, a recent event had made me nervous about traveling along the river.

We had some bad weather back in December. I was heading up for one of our regular camps by the river in the middle of the afternoon, in the darkness. It was very windy and my headlamp was shining its light against a white curtain of snowfall. I could hardly see passed 2 meters ahead of me. I could not figure out any of the landscape behind this white curtain. The trail was blown away and the wind had covered it with about half a meter of snow, which made it very difficult for the dogs to move forward. The sled often got stuck sideways in the deep snow and I had to push it with all my strength while encouraging the dogs to jump forward in their harnesses.

I finally made it to the camp and was hopeful that the way back in the morning would be easier because we would be driving in the first hour of daylight. However, my hopes were far from being fulfilled. The trip back turned into a nightmare. The wind had been blowing all night and the snow had been falling all night. The trail I had made the day before was completely invisible. It was still snowing and the wind was still blowing. I thought that driving close to the river bank would help me find the trail going out of the river into the forest but I became totally disorientated and could not recognize any of the landscape. My lead dog seems to head randomly for the forest and I kept redirecting her away from it. I had to break the trail in front of the dogs, walking fast or jogging as the dogs were walking faster than me, hitting my legs with their heads.
It took us an hour to travel a distance that would normally take 15 min. Exhausted and disorientated, I decided to call for a scooter to break the trail in front of us. After a few phone calls, a colleague of mine agreed to come to my rescue. I decided to remain on the spot and to wait for him with my four guests. When he arrived, I realized that I had passed the entrance to the forest trail by about 300 meters. I was definitely lost.

Since that trip, I get a little nervous when traveling on the river with bad weather so this week trip was the next big challenge for me.

The first camp we would drive to is further down on the river. Not many locals go down that way during the early winter so there is often very little trails or even no trail at all to get there. A very good friend and colleague of mine was going to follow me on this trip. I would be the main guide, driving first, but he would be my back-up in case I could not find my way.

It was a perfect training trip since the weather turned bad again! Heavy snow falls, followed by strong winds. My dogs had to break the trail while I was pushing the sled. Although I was determined to do my best not to ask for the help of my colleague, I had to turn to him about 4 times (over 27 km) to direct me to the "invisible" trail.
I learned several new trails on this trip and I now feel more confident about the "big great white" that you can encounter on the river during bad weather.

And I will finish this post with Indianette Jones, who came back into action recently, for your own pleasure, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I was on a simple, uncomplicated weekend tour. I was wearing brand new leather gloves, with quite thick inner gloves so my grip around the handlebar of the sled was not as good as usual.
We stopped for lunch with my guests but the area was full of reindeers so the dogs were barking and pulling like mad. As we stopped, I turned back to tell my guests to hold on tight to their sleds and that I would come to help them to park their teams. I remember being half way through my sentence as I felt my sled slipping away from my hand. Within a split second, I turned to my team and saw it running away from me... Immediately, I ran to the dog team behind me, pushed the guest off the sled and just had the time to say: "I need your team" and drove off chasing my team with her team!
I was screaming to my runaway dog team to stop but, as any musher knows, that did not help at all. The 2 front dogs of the team that I was driving came to the level of my run-away sled but the runaway dog team speed up and got further away from me. I chased them for about 2 km before they slowed down and came to a halt. During this chase, the famous movie tune was playing in my head... ;-)

Old and latest news

2011-01-06T17:36:00.002+01:00

Hello 2011,

It's been a while since I posted a story. I guess it has been a little quieter for "Indianette Jones".

Indi, Typhoon, Storm and Ackja joined the adult dogs training in September. However, Ackja came into heat early October and again early December so she has been on and off training and I have not been able to work with her as much as I would have liked. She is "isolated" in a small yard and she is going a little crazy, bursting with energy. She is still bleeding early January so she can't join my team... We don't want puppies from the "Queen of the bitches". This non-regular bleeding can happen with young females so I just have to be patient and wait...

Typhoon is my biggest dog and amaze me every day. He has turned into a fine sled dog. Powerful, calm and never tired to pull, he is the main "engine" of my team. He looks funny with his dropping lips, like a boxer, and has a little white heart shaped on his forehead... Bless him :-)

Storm gave me some troubles at the start of the season. He loves eating other dogs shit and gets a bad stomach as a result. I had a real hard time trying to keep his weight up. He was also growing up so fast over the summer that he looked underfed and mistreated! However, I seem to have found the magic food for him. I switched to a more balanced dry food and I sometimes add some "magic" powder to his meals. This powder is normally for horses and has been given to me by another musher. It is aimed to help the digestive system and stops any bad stomach without having any other side effects.

And my little Indi was becoming out of control, picking up a fight with any male in his close surroundings so I had to get him castrated. It has definitely helped since the other males don't feel threatened by him any more and he is definitely calmer around females in heat. It has also been helpful regarding "kennel management" since I can leave him with Ackja.

The autumn training was really enjoyable since the snow arrived one month earlier this year. We were able to take the sleds out at the end of October.

The only incident during the training season caused a real turmoil in our local community... And of course... it happened to me... I will skip some details as this is currently under criminal investigation... Yes... the police got involved and I might have to testify in court... So here is what happened.

My colleague and I were going to train two dog teams with our ATVs that morning. I started first and our "lovely" neighbour was standing on the road with his daughter, exactly where we are supposed to go through with the dog teams. There is plenty of space for him to stand anywhere else but he likes to stand right there, just to make a point. Anyway, I was driving the team down from our yard. Dogs don't run into an obstacle and always go around it so I was not concerned over this man standing on the road. However, he stepped in front of the team as they were coming close to him. Don't ask... He's a complete idiot. One dog tried to avoid him by going to his left but the other dog tried to avoid him by going to his right... Result... the man got the little wire between the lead dogs in his legs. As soon as I realized what happened, I stopped my team. The man was furious and started walking towards me. On his way, he assaulted two of my dogs, then stood between the dog team and the ATV and told me that he would call the police. I told him to do so and I gave him my name. Then followed some minutes of arguing and as he finally moved away from the ATV, I left to pursue the training.
The police called my boss saying that the man had put a complain against me for trying to kill him with the dog team. We had an appointment at the police station to explain our side of the story.
In the meantime, the man called the local newspaper. The following day, the paper published an article portraying me like a "hit and runaway" driver. The article was a complete tissue of lies. Several neighbours, including a European sprint dog racing champion and a vet called the newspaper to say how outrageous and unprofessional it was for the journalist to write such an article without checking both sides of the story. The same day, the journalist called my boss to apologize. They published another article the day after, with our side of the story, also explaining that we had put a complain against the man for cruelty against animals and endangering. Since then, the police has been doing their investigation work and this might end up in court. To be continued...

It wasn't the Titanic but it sank too...

2010-03-15T19:19:00.003+01:00

I had 7 people on an overnight tour. 3 couples were driving sleds on which one person sits while the other one drives the sled. There is no space for the luggage on those sleds so for logistic reasons, I had to drive a snow mobile with a trailer carrying our food, luggage and other necessities. One person would be driving what we call a "touring" sled. Just a normal sled with 3 dogs. These touring sleds are a little more difficult to drive as they require more balance from the driver.

I gave my usual safety instructions, insisting on the fact that whatever happens, it is VERY important for the drivers NOT to let go the sleds. Whenever a person falls off a sled, if they hang on to the sled, the dogs will stop. If they loose the sled, the dogs will run away, never stopping, fearing the sled out of control behind them.

Because of the trailer behind the snow mobile, I had decided to take a different route from the usual one to avoid an uphill part. We would drive straight onto the village road towards the river, rather than turning left in the forest towards the swamps. So I parked the scooter further down on the road after the forest trail and waited for my guests to follow with their sleds. I got off the scooter and stood in the middle of the road to call the dogs so they don't try to turn in the forest.

We started the tour and... my lady on the touring sled did not brake at all and her team soon got out of control. She fell off and lost the sled. I was standing a few meters away from the place where she fell and I had no chance to catch the team that passed at about 15km/hour and turned into the forest.

I ran back to the scooter, unhooked the trailer and drove off to chase the lost dog team. As I was driving on the swamp area, I caught a glimpse of the dog team heading full speed on a trail to my left. I had already passed the junction to that trail and had to drive further to another junction to follow them.

Unfortunately, the next junction was a sharp 90 degree turn, which is pretty hard to take with a snow mobile of about 300kg (700lb). As I took the turn, the machine went off on the right side of the trail. The swamp is normally totally frozen in the winter, but the weather had been warming up lately... As I was turning, I saw the glistening surface and hoped that it was still ice... but I soon realized that it was not... The machine started sinking from the rear and I pressed hard on the gas, hoping to pull it off before it was too late... But it was too late... I was totally stuck in the water, half of the machine under water...

A girl with a small scooter passed by and I asked her to help me to pull the scooter off the water but after a few unsuccessful attempts, we gave up . I was in the water up the thighs, with water in my boots, which, even by a warm -10 degrees was getting pretty quickly uncomfortably cold. My thoughts went back to the lost dog team and I called my boss for some help. He instructed me to leave the scooter and head back to the kennel and keep going with my tour. I would drive a sled on which the person who lost her team would sit.

The girl gave me a lift to the kennel and, after changing shoes and socks, I drove off with my guests. In the meantime, my boss took another scooter to chase the dog team. After a few phone calls from people who had seen the team passing by, he found them on the river. Then he headed back with another colleague to get the scooter out of the water. It took them 2 hours of breaking the ice, emptying the water from the hole and lifting up the scooter with pieces of wood. All that time with wet feet.

I was angry at myself for sinking the scooter, as I am pretty sure that, if it had not happened, I would have caught up with the dog team and managed to sort out the entire problem without requiring anybody's help.
I got in touch several times with my boss that evening and although he's not the type to tell you off, I could feel that he was pretty pissed off with me. I came back from the tour the following morning and found a picture of me on his garage door with the handwritten message "WANTED, dead or alive"... Under my picture was a picture of the scooter in the water... Oops...

It wasn't meant to be like this...

2009-12-27T19:53:00.004+01:00

Life as a sled dog guide is sometimes full of surprises. You sometimes have to face unplanned situations that will shake you up and rise your adrenaline levels to the maximum...

Today, I had what we call an airport transfer. We take guests on a big sled, from the airport to the Ice Hotel. It is about an hour journey, sometimes with a stop for lunch. I had never done that particular trip and had never been on the trails at the beginning and the end of this trip. My boss had showed me the trails I had to follow on Google Earth. I knew theoretically where to go, but when you've never seen the trail before, you don't know which corners are tricky or which parts are bumpy so you have to be extra careful when driving the sled.

Anyway, I felt a little nervous about this trip but was confident that I would manage to find my way around the trails. My guests' plane was an hour late which meant that the last part of the journey would happen in the darkness. The nervous, super organised person that I am took 3 headlamps for that trip as my super expensive and hopefully very efficient headlamp had not arrived yet. So, amongst those 3 headlamps, I should be able to find one that could lighten up my way enough so I don't miss a junction. I was prepared...

My guests finally arrived and we started our journey. The most tricky junctions were in the first half of the trip and all went well. My lead dog responded very well to me and we were heading the right way. Then we stopped for a short lunch and we finally headed for the Ice Hotel. We had to cross the river, with an other important junction where I had to go right to make sure that I was going through a tunnel. Going the wrong way would have forced me to cross a fairly busy road leading to the Ice Hotel, so it was quite important for me not to miss that junction. After a few minutes, that seemed endless to me, I finally saw the junction and told my lead dog to turn right as planned. She executed herself perfectly and my heart felt relieved as I came out of the tunnel. Most of the journey was over and we probably only had 10 minutes left before reaching the Ice Hotel.

But, all of a sudden, in a very sharp corner, my sled went over a stone and tipped on the right side. Although we were going at a fairly slow speed, it happened so fast that I was unable to do anything to avoid it. My guests fell on the right side too in front of me and I was unable to hold on to the sled which is THE RULE NUMBER 1 for any musher. I got up in a blink of an eye and started running after the team which kept running away. I screamed my lead dog's name with the command to stop but no voice command can really stop 10 dogs on the loose. I ran and ran and screamed and screamed but quickly, the sled disappeared in the forest, leaving my guests and I behind. Then I rang my boss and told him what happened. The call was brief and after hanging up, I knew that a rescue operation was already underway. Lots of things can happen to a loose dog team but I knew that they were running towards the Ice Hotel and that if someone was there in time, they could try to catch them and stop them.
As thoughts were rushing through my head on how things happened and how things could turn bad, I checked if my guests were ok. Most of the time, people falling off a sled are just a little bruised and a little shocked. They were both unhurt and in a fairly good spirit. I apologised to them for what just happened and offered them either to wait for a rescue car or try to walk to the Ice Hotel which was about 2 km away. They chose to walk to stay warm.

As we were walking on the trail by the side of a road, I heard a car beeping. It was my boss. We walked up the ditch separating the trail from the road and jumped into his car. After confirming where I lost the team, he called my colleague who was supposed to be waiting for me on the river by the Ice Hotel and told her that my lose team was heading towards her. As they spoke, my colleague confirmed that she could see a team running towards her and she hanged up the phone to be able to catch it.
A couple of minutes later, she called back to confirm that she had managed to stop the team! We arrived just a couple of minutes later and we drove on the river. I jumped off the car and ran to help her as the team had tangled up around the sled. After a few minutes, everything was back in order, my guests had been taken care of as I was busy with the dogs, the dogs got untangled and loaded back into the truck and as we were driving back to the kennel, I felt my whole body melting with relief...

Indianette Jones is back!

2009-11-24T08:28:00.002+01:00

When we train the dogs with ATVs, we hook up the machines to a fence with a special metal hook at the end of a line and we release the hook manually once we seat on the ATV, ready to go.
Last week, we were four handlers on the yard, 3 ladies, 1 guy. We had decided that my male colleague and I would train one dog team each for 25km, while the two other girls would train the puppy team on a shorter distance after we were gone.

We hooked up two ATVs to the fence, side by side. I would start first and my colleague would follow me. Because of the way the kennel is set up, we first gather the dogs we need in a big yard, attach each dog to a stake out line, then take them one by one outside the yard to hook them up to the line in front of the ATV.

My 12 dog team was ready and I just noticed that one of my lead dogs had his line between his leg so I walked to the front of the team to move the line. As I was walking back to my ATV, the second dog team started running forward. For a split second, I was wondering why my colleague was starting before me while we had agreed that I would go first. Then I saw that nobody was sitting on the ATV!!! The hook had given away... I screamed "THE ATV!!!" One girl was coming out of the yard, holding a dog and could only look at the ATV rolling away with an expression of terror in her eyes. My other colleague, who was standing on the other side of both dog teams, so the nearest to the moving ATV, tried to catch it but missed it. The horrible picture of 11 dogs running down the road pulling a 180kg ATV without any driver and all the dangers it could cause went through my mind and I started running along my dog team, passed my lead dogs, ran by the side of the moving ATV and threw myself on the machine. Unfortunately, I only landed sideways on the machine, chest leaning against the seat, with one hand on the handlebar. Within a second, my male colleague also jumped on the ATV but landed on ME!!! So here we were. 11 dogs pulling an ATV, reaching about 10km an hour, going down a 70% slope, with my colleague and I hanging on the side of the machine...
Since my colleague was lying on me, I could not move and I kept shouting at him "Get off!" and since the ATV was moving down along a stony ditch, he kept answering "I can't!". It was like a comic stunt moment in a Jackie Chang movie!
Fortunately, the dogs must have realised something wasn't quite right and they somehow stopped after about 100 meters down on the road. We both stood up and my colleague sat on the ATV, pressing both hand and foot brakes while I went back up to get my own dog team, the Indiana Jones theme tune echoing in my head...

Snow has since arrived and the winter season has officially started. I did my first sled tour about 4 days ago and it feels great being back on the sled!

Winter Survival Course

2009-11-17T20:37:00.003+01:00

Last week, we had a Winter Survival course with an ex-military guy. Like any training, part of it was theoretical but we had been told that there would be a practical part... I know that a few years ago, some guides had to jump in the local river... So we were all wondering what kind of surprise we would be facing on that practical training.

The theoretical part was mainly about hypothermia and froze bites, things that can happen to us but also to our guests, especially when the temperatures drop to -30 degree Celcius in February. Our instructor had been in the army with our boss. They were both in the mountain regiment, (the French equivalent would be "les chasseurs alpins"). It was quite fascinating to hear their stories when they gave us real life examples. The training was very much orientated on how to take care of our guests in cold conditions.

Then, we all met at the kennel, where we were asked to jump in our Volkswagen 8 seater car and we were driven to the end of the country road, by the river. We were asked to get off and to follow our instructor, along with our boss, on the frozen river. At this stage, we still didn't know what to expect... The river is still not totally frozen at this time of the year but you can walk on the sides without any danger. The ground is probably frozen up to 1 meter down and the ice is covered by 10 cm of powdery snow. It was -7 degrees celcius that evening (warm!).

Then, our instructor asked us to line up side by side in front of him, army style ;-)
He asked us to knee down and to remove our right glove if we were right-handed or left if we were left-handed. The following game was to plunge your hand under the snow and to leave it as long as possible, but to remove it before the hurting feeling would go away, then to warm it up under your own armpit, skin to skin. Although some pain was felt, we didn't think that we were asked to do something very difficult.

THEN, came a slightly bigger challenge. We were 5 guides on that course. The instructor picked 3 guides and asked them to follow him. However, before leaving, he told the 2 other guides (me and another female guide) to take off one shoe and socks, put our foot in the snow and wait for his signal to walk up to him and to the other guides. The distance would be approximately 100 meters. So we executed ourselves...

Snow is cold... Especially to the foot, centre of a lot of nerves... Ouch... I still feel cold just thinking about it! We stood with one foot in the snow for maybe 1 or 2 minutes, then walked to the instructor. Our boss had stayed with us and told us to walk at a normal pace. At first, it wasn't too bad, then a burning pain captured my entire foot. Each step was like throwing my foot against a very hard surface. When we reached the instructor and the 3 other guides, we were told to sit down on the clothes they had put down on the snow for us, and to "hand" our foot, each to a different guide, who would be responsible for warming up our foot under his/her armpit, skin to skin. For those who might think that the situation would be too intimate for them, I would say that when you live in such cold weather conditions, intimacy, shyness or any physical repulse totally disappear because you know this can be a real life threatening situation, so you do what you have to do and you forget all about the "codes" that you've been brought up with in Southern Europe.
I was so surprised to feel such heat from my colleague's armpit! ;-) After about 7 minutes, my foot was warm and I was allowed to boot it up again.

Then, we exchanged roles and my female colleague and I had to warm up 3 feet! I was assigned two feet... Is it for my larger body size??? Probably... Anyway, I took off my overall on which the two guides sat and, in my long johns and jumper, one foot under each armpit, I waited for them to feel warm. :-))

Pictures of this winter survival experience are available on this blog. :-)
Enjoy ;-)

2009-09-23T18:56:00.002+02:00

Training season has started and the crazy world of dog sledging has awaken. ATVs with dog teams now appear from every corners of the trails. Between the moose hunters and those dog teams, one needs to be quite alert when walking through the forest!

And with the training, start the funny stories... ;-) It's the time when the dogs get used to the new staff. I think the staff gets as much training as the dogs during that time. This is also the time when the dogs are a little crazy and full of energy after a lazy summer and they are a little more difficult to handle.

My first training ride went a little wrong when the lead dog decided to drag the whole team in the ditch to lay in the water to cool down and would not respond to my commands. Hummm, not a good start...

Regarding my lovely puppy Indi, who is GROWING so fast, I am blessed to have such a great dog. He is responding very well to any training. I have even started some clicker training with him which might be a first for a future sled dog! His motivation for the food rewards makes it very easy and he seems to understand what we expect from him pretty quickly. He is very social with both humans and other dogs and his best friend at the moment is a female Malinois.

The only down side with Indi is that he wakes me up between 3 to 5 times every night, and not always to go to the toilets... He is pretty much house trained as he always wakes me up if he needs to go. However I've started telling him off when he wakes me up less than an hour after having been outside. Indeed, I've discovered that some "wake up calls" are more motivated by the tiny bits of sled dog food that he can sometimes find outside rather than "toilet calls". Anyway, I can't wait to be able to include him in my sled dog team when going on tours this winter. :-)

Summer news

2009-08-16T20:15:00.003+02:00

Hi everyone,

Upon general request, I will keep updating my blog this coming winter. For those who haven't heard from me over the Summer, well, there is quite a funny story to tell.

First of all, I had a really nice time in France back in June and July with my family. It was the longest time spent in France over the last 11 years and, although it is quite difficult to re-adjust to the French way sometimes, it was nice to be back in my homeland.

As a very organised person (humm), I had found a Summer job in Norway as a bus guide. The job itself did not sound really exciting but I was told that it would be fairly good money. To cut a long story short, I was given the details of this tour guide company by a guy who lived nearby the kennel in Sweden. I got in touch with them via emails. After a couple of emails, it was agreed that I would work for them in August only. Very few details were given to me and a job contract was not even available. This should have started lighting up the warning lights for me but I was in such a relaxed state after this hard working season that I was ready for a little adventure.

Well, adventure and chaos... I got. I turned up in Norway and was picked up by a German girl and her weird boyfriend. Nothing was said to me and I was left on my own in a tiny room in the middle of nowhere, about 37km away from any town. Anyway, I got in touch with the tour guide company, someone came to visit me at the house where I was staying and I was promised training and scripts of the tours. The only training I got was a 40 min chat with a young guide who gave me one script. My first tour was arranged 3 days after my arrival but I was only told the evening before the tour. I was picked up at 7.00am and on my way to the tour, I was told that I would guide in French, not in English as I was told, that the tour I was going to do was not actually the tour I had been briefed on and that I was not allowed to read the script on the bus. I was sent on a bus in an area where I had never been and was asked to describe particular points of the landscape as we were driving through the area. I had no bloody idea what these points looked like. I was in the North area of the fjords surrounded by mountains and had to point at particular mountains. Being resourceful and liking a bit of challenge, I accepted to do the tour and thought that I might see signs on the road indicating those points of interests. But there were no signs.... I did my best and even started talking about the Northern part of the country based on my experience in Lapland. I really didn't think I had done a good job and wanted to run away when a tourist gave me a tip.

In the afternoon, they told me to get on a bus with an Italian guide so I could get some training... I don't speak Italian but I could understand when the guide was pointing at certain parts of the landscape. I realised that I told my tourists that something was on the left side of the road when it was in fact on the right, 3 km behind us... Oops...
At the end of the day, I spoke to the organisers and they showed no concern of the poor guiding I gave on that day. They even wanted me to guide a complete different tour a few days later. I then decided that the whole situation was a joke. I called some friends in Sweden and decided to head up North as soon as I could find an available flight. It took me 36 hours of travel via aiports, train stations and bus stations before I arrived back in Kiruna, relieved to have escaped from this crazy Norwegian company.

A few days later, I discovered that the whole matter could have been avoided if the company had told me that they could not give me any training when coming mid Summer season...

Anyway, a few days after my arrival in Kiruna, I acquired an alaskan husky puppy from a friend. This little fur ball is named Indi, after Indiana Jones (thanks Victor for giving me the idea of the name after calling me like that last Winter). You will see soon plenty of pictures of this little treasure. :-)

The dog training season will start in a couple of weeks. I will train them, along with the new handler, then the guests will arrive around mid-November and I will start this new winter season as a full time sled dog guide, until the end of April.

I am sure that this winter is going to be full of surprises and will give good story material to relate on my blog. I hope you will enjoy reading it this coming season.

Big hugs from rainy Lapland,
Steph(ie)

Spring news

2009-04-03T11:48:00.002+02:00

The end of the winter season is getting close. Last year, they were able to drive sleds until the first week of May. It is still snowing at the moment and it fell over 10cm of snow overnight so we are breaking the trails again today.

I am "officially" a guide now. I have been on weekend tours for which I go away for 3 days with my guests. We drive between 2 to 3 hours with the dogs on the first couple of days and we sleep in wooden cabins in one of our camps, about 15 km from any civilisation. The camp is by a lake, surrounded by the forest and all you can hear is the silence. Sooooo nice.

I had encounters with rein deers on my way to the toilets, both late at night and early in the morning. It kind of wakes you up when you walk outside at 6.30am and find yourself facing this huge animal, starring at you only 5 meters away from where you're standing...

On my first weekend trip, I got lost once and drove through a village and ended up on a trail of a single snow mobile going through bushes! We had to turn around the dog teams one by one on this narrow and steep trail... But I kept control of the situation and my guests were good sport about it. We made it part of the "Adventure".

Like a young dog running without saving its energy, I burnt myself out on a couple of trips. I was so pleased to have nice guests that I spent late evenings with them, talking about the Northern life and about the dogs. Result: I was absolutely chattered and ended up completely missing a turn on a simple late evening tour. I was half dreaming at the back of my sled with a 12 dog team and 4 guests seating on the sled. I did not realise that I was coming to a junction and did not give the command to turn to my lead dog Takla, who, as a good lead dog, kept going straight on. Once I realised my mistake, half the team was already ahead of the junction and it was too late to turn the team. So we kept going and had to go through a narrow trail with lots of trees right on the edge of the trail. I feared this trail with such a big sled as a guest broke his foot last year against a tree. However, the ground was really icy and the guests had his foot outside the sled. Keeping in mind this story, I drove extremely carefully and slowly through that trail, making sure that my guests' feet were not pointing outside the sled. It all went well and we made it back to the kennel on time.

Rambo is gone

2009-02-04T18:22:00.005+01:00

Rambo is gone. It happened just like that. I was on a short tour yesterday evening with four people on the sled. I noticed on the way back that something was a little "off" with the team but I wasn't sure what. One of the dogs kept poking at the dog next to him. But they were all running ok or so I thought.

It's only when I was unhooking the dogs that CK noticed that Rambo was limping from his back left leg. She diagnosed the injury straight away and said it might be the end of him as a sled dog. The kennel owner told me to leave him on rest for at least a week and I was hoping that CK's diagnostic was wrong.

As today was my day off, I was only told tonight that Rambo had been taken to the vet this morning where they had done an X-Ray. The ligaments around the knee were torn. This was the end of his life as a sled dog and since he was 9 years old, the decision was taken to put him down.

He was my favourite lead dog. The fact that he got injured on my tour makes it a little worse for me but everybody told me that those things just happen. He was running just behind the lead dog and you can't always spot a problem when a dog is that far away in a 12 dog team, running in the dim light of your head lamp. And even if I had noticed while driving, there was little I could have done. This injury can be caused by so many factors while running. And once it has happened, it's already too late.

The news of his death did not hit me until I discovered he was in a plastic bag in the car and I had to carry him out with CK. I could still feel the heat of his body through the plastic bag.

He was a good dog. One of our best lead dogs. He can enjoy some rest in sled dogs' heaven.

Indianette Jones

2009-01-20T14:09:00.004+01:00

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"

Two months have gone

2009-01-04T20:27:00.002+01:00

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.”

-18c and still going down

2008-11-01T09:28:00.003+01:00

Winter has officially arrived. The temperatures have remained between -7c and -10c during the day, dropping to -18c in the early morning.

I must admit that the cold is not as unpleasant as one can imagine. We've all increased the layers and put on the big snow shoes. My outfit when training the dogs in the forest includes 1 insulating T-shirt, keeping me dry when sweating, 2 thin fleeces, 1 thick fleece and 1 scooter overall, 3 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of gloves, 1 fury hat and 1 scarf pulled over my face up to my nose.

When training the dogs yesterday, my eye lashes were covered with a thin layer of ice. I felt very proud to look like those men and women I've seen on so many pictures.

We've now increased the daily training to 23km, so each team runs for a couple of hours. With the winter time, we now come back from the afternoon training in the darkness as the sun sets around 3.00pm.

These cold temperatures have brought some sun and clear blue sky. The forest looks absolutely beautiful under the morning sun. The entire forest is covered with a layer of frost which sparkles like diamonds all around us. Photos to follow soon on Facebook.

New day, new challenge

2008-10-09T17:14:00.002+02:00

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

2008-10-03T15:30:00.003+02:00

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...

Northern Lights

2008-09-23T12:23:00.003+02:00

I saw my first Northern Lights last week while training the dogs with a guide late in the evening. And what a show!!
Stripes of green lights started following us through the forest. They started changing shapes, then the intensity of the green increased and decreased continously, then, the most beautiful show I've ever seen started.
A stripe of green broke into what seemed to be a piano keyboard. Then each "key" changed colour very quickly, like if a hand had been running through the keyboard. Green, yellow, pink... It was an amazing sight. Even the guide who had been up North for a while was amazed. My jaw "dropped" many times that evening and no words could express the magical feeling that was in the air.

And no, the dogs don't howl when the Northern Lights are on, as I've seen in some bad Hollywood movie...

Holidays are over...

2008-09-11T15:31:00.004+02:00

One week after my arrival, real work has started.

We now feed the dogs twice a day, in the morning and in the evening.

As I'm following Swedish language classes in the morning, here is a typical day at the moment.
5.30am Getting up,feeding the dogs, cleaning the kennels
8.00 Start of the Swedish language class in Kiruna
12.00pm Back at the kennel for lunch
1.30pm Start training the dogs
5.00pm Feeding time again and cleaning the kennels
7.00pm Diner time for me :-)
8.00pm Helping the guide training his dogs
10.30/11.00pm Back in my cabin, ready for bed!

I took the driving seat when training the dogs today. It's a fantastic feeling and also a great responsibility. You're sitting on this powerful machine and you need to keep a balance between letting the dogs pull and helping them a little when the trail is tough.

My lead dog almost missed one of the turns but as I've been told, it's not the dog who is bad, it's the musher giving bad or late commands. I guess this will also come with experience. :-)

Bye for now

I love this life

2008-09-07T21:23:00.003+02:00

On Friday evening, as I was taking a walk towards the river, I met one of the guides and the other handler training the guide's dogs with the ATV. They stopped next to me and offered me to jump in. And so did I! I ended up doing twice 5 km on the back board of the ATV behind the two guys, pulled by 10 dogs. We trained the dogs in the darkness, using only the ATV's lights. The night was cold, minus one, and beautiful. There was a clear sky and I had never seen so many stars in my life. It was a magical evening and I remembered my boring evenings in London where life after work would be heading back home, have dinner and watch TV. Being out with the dogs, even by minus one degree celcius was so much more fulfilling. I love this lifestyle.

When it rains...

2008-09-04T14:15:00.001+02:00

Day 2 of training.

I'm starting to master the art of putting on and taking off the harnesses... We trained two teams of 8 dogs this morning under the rain.

When walking back one of the lead dogs to its yard, I stepped on the wooden palette at the front of the yard. As it had been raining all night and morning, the wood was quite wet. As I was trying to hurry to get the dog back inside, my right leg went left as my left leg went right and my buttocks landed on the floor while I was still holding the dog's collar in my right hand! It took me a few seconds to "untangle" myself and get back on my feet. As I looked behind me, I saw the kennel owner smiling at me and said "It's wet...". Embarrassing moment....

First training day

2008-09-03T20:18:00.000+02:00

Hello from Jukkasjarvi where I landed on Sunday.

I'm taking care of about 53 siberian huskies for a dogsled tour company.

After a lazy Summer, the dogs need to be trained for the Winter season. We started today and my skills as a handler were tested... It is probably important to mention that I have almost no experience of handling dogs as I never had a family pet. My only experience is back in May-June this year when I stayed 20 days at the same kennel to get a first taste of what the life as a handler would be.

It all started wrong when I was asked to get the first dog, a female living in a dog yard with 2 other females. Me, the rookie, tried to grab the dog while standing outside of the dog yard. First mistake as one of the other females forced her way out, opening the door wide enough for the 2 other females to run free too, leaving me swearing at my lack of agility, speed and strength to stop them in time.

Fortunately, they ran straight to the main dog yard, like well trained soldiers who know the drill of a training exercice. Indeed, the main dog yard is where a dog team is gathered before hooking them up to the gangline.

The second handler, even less experienced than me, but a "dominant" male, helped me to get the two dogs back in their dog yard.

Once the 8 dogs were in the main yard, we started to put their harnesses on. Once again, holding the dogs between my legs so I can put their harness on, proved to be challenging. Some dogs will hold fairly still and will hand you their front legs quite easily. It seems that the dogs I picked had a different idea of how dogs should behave in that situation! Finally, after some twisting and collar dragging, we got the entire team hooked up to the line and I jumped at the back of the ATV while the kennel owner took the driving seat.

I felt that, although the main point of this exercice was to train the dogs, the handlers got much more training!

The last challenge of the exercice was to take the bxxxxx harnesses off. Again, one of the dogs decided not to cooperate and refused to lift up his front legs. I then remembered the words of my German guide telling me that the dog didn't need to "want to" but "had to". In short, it's up to the handler, not to the dog...

Although it feels like a distant future, I am confident that these gestures will become second nature and that I will manage to get dog teams together for our tourist tours without so much trauma! At least, let's hope so!