Dogsledding: Guest Post

 Happy Birthday to Mark, and he wrote this post. 

One of the benefits of traveling to snowy northern Norway is that there are a plethora of winter activities to do.  Besides the usual skiing/snowboarding, snowshoeing, and snowmobiling, there are also things more unique to Tromsø, such as reindeer sleigh rides and dogsledding.  We went dogsledding twice during our Norway travels.  This is the story of the first of those adventures.

 The dogsledding company of our first experience is located at the Tromsø Golf Club, the northernmost 18-hole golf course in the world.  Buried in snow in the winter, it becomes the perfect place for an amazing dogsledding experience.  The dogsledding company runs shuttle busses from Tromsø city center to the dogsledding camp.  It takes about an hour to get there and the views along the way are spectacular.

The noise on arrival was also spectacular.  They have well over 100 dogs there and they all want to talk to each other at full volume.

The dogsledding company is an efficient organization.  They herd you from the bus to a changing room, where everyone gets outfitted in boots, gloves, and warm thermal suits that reminded me of snowmobiling in Yellowstone when I was a kid.  From the changing room you head out and get a safety briefing and a crash course in operating a dogsled. 

Rule # 1: DO NOT LET GO OF THE SLED. 

Rule #2: Here are the brakes.  Know how to use them. 

Rule #3: Don’t crash into the sledder ahead of you. 

Rule #4: Use the brake on downhill sections so your sled doesn’t overtake the dogs and run them over. 

Rule #5: Bend your knees and shift your weight for stability and steering. 

Rule #6: Passengers need to keep their arms and legs inside the ride at all times until it has reached a full and complete stop.  Otherwise, you could break a limb.

Rule #7: DO NOT LET GO OF THE SLED.

You then get herded over to the starting area and are assigned to a sled and team of dogs.  The dogs are already harnessed and hooked up by the time you get there, and they are anxious to get going.  These dogs absolutely love to run and pull the sled.  I had been concerned about maybe the dogs being exploited and put to work, but it was obvious that this was what they loved to do and they really wanted to do it.  It is two people per sled (one driver and one passenger), and halfway through the run there is a stopping point where you can switch places if you want.  Four or five dogs are assigned to each sled, and there are about a dozen sleds that all go at the same time.  The lead sled has two guides on it to both lead us on the correct path and to help out if anything happens to us.  Sadie and I wound up on the last sled in the column.  This was fine as it meant that we did not have anyone nipping at our heels, and we also could see difficult spots ahead where others were struggling. 

Everyone gets set with their sleds and the dogs are pulling at their harnesses to get moving.  A worker comes through and unhitches each sled in turn and off you go.  The dogs go from zero to running in the blink of an eye.  Sadie was driving for the first stage of our journey, and I was impressed at our speed.  While it is only around 15 mph in the snow conditions we had, that is still pretty good for a set of dogs running through snow while hauling along my fat rear-end.  15 mph isn’t quite Usain Bolt sprint speed, but it is still about twice as fast as an average adult male runs.  Turn your treadmill up to 15 and see how you do.  Competition dogsled teams do 15-20 mph for hours and hours on end.

The brisk pace was made all the brisker with the freezing temperature and falling snow.  We dashed across open fields, through woods and brush, and up and down some slopes.  It was a lot of fun in a place of breathtaking mountain scenic beauty – a beauty Sadie was unable to appreciate with her glasses constantly fogging up.  Riding in a sled with a driver whose vision is mostly occluded provided an unnecessary additional hit of adrenaline/fear. 

Despite driving mostly blind, things were going well until near the halfway point.  The dogs know the route, and even if they don’t, it is simple for them to follow the team ahead of us in the column.  But our dogs drifted a little to the right on the trail and our right skid hit a soft spot in the snow as it moved a bit outside the well-trodden path.  In an instant we were dumped on our right side and stopped dead.  I called out to Sadie, “Hang on to the sled!”  She responded that she was hanging on, but I called out again for her to hang on to the sled.  She affirmed again that she was.  Even though we were on our side and partly sunken into the snow, I really did not want the dogs to take off with me still in the sled and no driver to apply the brake.  Once I was certain that Sadie was dutifully hanging on to the sled and we were not moving, I crawled out of the sled seat and floundered around in the snow for a bit as I continuously broke through the crust of ice that was under the top layer of snow.  Smooth sled riding if you stay on top of that layer.  Labored struggle if you plunge through into the powder beneath and have to repeatedly pull yourself up and out.  Eventually I got back onto the trail which multitudes of dogsled runs had made into hardened snow you can usually stand on.  Sadie, though lying on her right side and partly buried in snow, was still dutifully holding the sled.  I grabbed the sled and then Sadie released her hold on it so she could stand back up while I righted it and applied the brake.  She could then take back over as the driver and I would get back in as passenger.  However, in the brief moment of time between me getting the sled back on its skids and me stepping on the brake, the dogs took off.  In a flash I was suddenly upside down on my back, being dragged through the snow, hanging on to the sled handle with only my right hand, with my right shoulder in a painful and awkward position.  The speed and force with which the dogs launched into their run was honestly impressive.  And surprising.

Fortunately, I make a pretty good brake while being dragged behind a sled on my back, building up a berm of snow in front of me, and despite the best efforts of the dogs we came to a stop.  Sadie caught up to me and stepped on the brake so that I could let go.  I got back up and stepped on the brake as well.  At this point Sadie figured that we were probably about halfway through so she would be the passenger and I would drive.  As we prepared to get moving and catch up with the group, one of our guides arrived to see if we were okay. 

The guide told us that we did a really good job.  We held onto the sled and responded to the difficulty appropriately.  He said that most people would not (or could not) hang onto the sled under those circumstances.  Chasing down a dogsled with no occupant or driver is a challenge for the guides and a potential danger to the dogs themselves and the teams ahead of us in the column.  Our guide was impressed with us and gave us several compliments, and we felt pretty darn good about that.  Sadie and I joked later that we may not be the best at driving, but we are definitely the best at crashing.

The rest of the ride was beautiful, exhilarating, and comparatively uneventful.  Sadie was right that the halfway-point was just ahead, so I remained the driver at the pit stop and for the rest of the ride.  The dogs were great and really enjoyed things too.  When you applied the brake they sometimes glanced over their shoulder back at you as though to question you and your decision to slow down their fun.  Not just the fun, but I think that they were also thinking about all that effort they put into moving the sled and getting its momentum going and then the dumb clueless heavy human on the sled puts the brakes on.

At the end you drive to your starting station and the sled gets tied back to its starting post.  You can then pet your dogs and tell them that they did great, you can check out the puppies in the puppy enclosure, you change out of the company’s boots, gloves, and suit, and you can get some hot-chocolate or tea and some little cakes while you wait for your bus to take you back to town.

It was a fun experience in a majestic wintry wonderland.

My shoulder hurt for more than a week after it.