Day 642 - Kittilä, Finland
Sled Dogs in Training
We found the dogs! How we found them is another story. We were in Rovaniemi having breakfast when we met Tanita and Elizabeth, two women who confessed they had developed a bad case of "Lapland fever," and begun training sled dogs in Finland. That was exactly what we were hoping to find in these parts.
They gave us an email and and a location in the wilds of Finland -- I mean way up there. Once we got to Levi, I had, stupidly, punched the location they gave us into the gps dingus and that was what had taken us to the camp in the middle of nowhere the day before (see previous post). That place was so remote that I had to vastly expand the map on my phone to see even the smallest villages; places with names like Kiruna, Yllas, Äkäslompolo.
If I been using my head, I would have immediately reached out instead to Hiltakkai and asked for a precise address. Instead, once back to our hotel, cell service again in tact, I emailed Hiltakkai, and we got the exact address.
We had the day to try to find the dog sledding camp before heading to the town of Jokkmokk, Sweden, many hours away and famous as the cultural center of the Sami people. So after breakfast, we stuffed our bags in the car and hot-footed it for the dogs.
There Victoria, a delightful young Bulgarian woman met us. She was volunteering at the camp and lived with Vladimir, a 40 year old guide, also from Bulgaria with a beard like black sandpaper.
Soon afterwards we met Bass (or Bassim), a sled dog trainer from Vienna of Egyptian descent, and he in turn introduced us to the dogs he was training, all adolescent females.
He showed us the dogs – 24 females. As he walked into the pens where they lived in canine comfort, each with their own little house, they went nuts; not out of fear or anger, but pure joy. These dogs (Bass explained that almost none of them were pure bred), are the most affectionate dogs I have ever seen.
“Oh, they love attention!“ Said Bassim as he introduced us to each dog.
Some were shy, some would have hopped in our laps. Not one was aggressive or dangerous. Mostly they want to be petted and then off to pull the sled – they knew that was why Bassim was there.
We couldn't sled with them unfortunately, though Bass offered, because when training he generally harnessed 12 dogs and they would run for two hours. We didn't have that much time.
Each couple of dogs were housed so that they were comfortable with their mate rather than the roommates from hell that we humans sometimes end up with.
Bass released the dog until they settled down a bit and then harnessed them up before sending them off into the woods.
“Once they are harnessed,“ said Bass. "They start barking and howling and pulling to get moving. That’s all they want to do -- run!“
I asked him the secret to training. “Patience,” he said solemnly, “that’s the most important thing with handling these dogs.” And Bass was immensely patient. I felt somehow he would make an excellent father someday.
Soon enough the dogs and Bass were off!; yelping, barking riotously, and hauling like bejesus to draw the sled into the high snow and trees of pine that surrounded the camp – that was all they wanted. You would think they were in pain, but they weren’t. They were just ready to go!
And soon they did with the sled and Bass (slim and lightly bearded) disappearing into the snow deep woods.
Once Bass was off, we enjoyed a cup of tea with Victoria and Vladimir, and talked some politics, Bulgaria is rife with corruption we were told, and they weren’t fans of Donald Trump. Their goal: get to Canada and Patagonia sometime soon, and eventually the United States, but there the paperwork was overwhelming and it would take time.
Warmed by our tea, we piled back into our little rental, and hauled our way south to Jokkmokk. A light snow began to fall, and once again we were enveloped in blankets of white, surrounded by broad lakes and endless miles of pine forest.
As we drove on the snow picked up, and beautiful as it was, the driving became treacherous. In no time it was dark as we wound along the Gulf of Finland. The sea was calm, but the sky glowered, and an umbrella of black clouds hung over it like a shroud.
I’ll let Bass and the raw videos of the dogs and sledding reveal the rest.
