Normally, we conduct our husky tours in small groups of up to four guests, but this year we made an exception—three, in fact. We had the great honor of welcoming exchange students from Aarhus, Stockholm, and Lund universities for a very special day at our kennel in Slussfors for their very own sleddog experience.
It’s the calm before the storm
In about an hour, the bus will arrive, bringing with it 40 students from all over the world, currently on an exchange semester in Scandinavia. Through the TimeTravel program, they have the opportunity to participate in a trip to Lapland, complete with all the activities that entails—including our husky tours.
Our team is making the final preparations, harnessing 45 dogs. Because as well as for our regualar tours, we want our guests not just to sit in the sled; they get to steer their own team.
Husky Tour and hot chocolate
Since not everyone can ride with the dogs at the same time, we divide the group. One third will start with a 5 km sled ride, basically a warm-up for our dogs. The second group will participate in a kennel visit, bombard our handlers with questions and where they can cuddle our dogs, that are not running. One of them always becomes everyone’s secret favourite: Kira. She is one of our senior dogs and likes to be cuddled all day long… At the kennel visit the groups learn all about Petter’s most successful dogs and the unique characteristics and training of Alaskan Huskies.
Meanwhile, the third group will gather around our campfire, listening to sled dog legends while roasting marshmallows and sipping hot chocolate. Most of them had no idea that mushing was such a professional sport, so they were all the more interested to hear the backstories of the Iditarod in Alaska and the Finnmarksløpet.
After a little more then half an hour, the groups will rotate. The first group, now a bit tired, and enjoys even more the hot chocolate and marshmallows. The other groups, who go on the sled later, have the great advantage that they first learn a lot about the dogs and sledding and can now test this knowledge in practice.
Meeting the world champion
During our first visit from the Aarhus University, Petter had just started in the Finnmarksløpet, so we show our guests on a map where he is currently located and share the link for the livetracking with them, so they can follow the race for the rest of the week. On March 8th, the University of Stockholm visits us, just a few hours before Petter crosses the finish line in Alta as the first-place winner, adding an extra layer of excitement for the group.
The final group from Lund University drew the lucky straw, as the freshly crowned Finnmarksløpet champion had returned home just two days earlier and didn’t miss the chance to answer all their questions about the sport and the race. With such an opportunity, it was almost difficult to get this group to go to the next station, namely sledging 😉
Although it was a strong contrast to our usual small group tours, we had a great time and hope to meet some of you again in the future! A big thank you goes also to our team, who did an amazing job organizing the tours despite Petter and Angela’s absence.
For the next season we will be cooperate with TimeTravel again and already excited to see who we’ll meet next!
