Gavin and Allison Fall Down: Dogsledding Edition

Gavin and Allison Fall Down is a recurring series where we try Norwegian winter sports and recount our shortcomings for your amusement. This week: Dogsledding.

Previous editions: curling, ski jumping, bobsledding, cross country skiing

The big attraction for us to Svalbard (click here for the intro-to-Svalbard post) was a 24-hour “mini-expedition” on dogsleds as put together by Svalbard Husky (an “expedition” is five or 14 days, which, yikes).  We were picked up at our hotel by Audun, our guide and the owner of the business.

Audun’s career started as a member of the Norwegian special forces – when he found out who I worked for, he delighted in telling me about the NATO Arctic training sessions in which Norwegian reservists on skis easily embarrassed hulking SEALs.  After the Army, Audun went to university in Finnmark (northern Norway), where he elected to live in a tent for several years, rather than an apartment.  In other words, if you’re going to be wandering around in the Arctic, you probably want to take Audun with you.

Our first stop was to headquarters to get outfitted and to talk about safety (i.e., it’s going to be cold, and there might be polar bears).  Like in Kiruna, we were issued arctic onesies, as well as fur-lined hats and extra thick boots; given that it would be about -5°F for the whole time we were outside. Since Audun had kind of spooked us during the safety talk, we left quite a few layers on underneath as well.

From there, we went to the kennel.  While Audun and his wife outfitted the sleds, we walked around and met the dogs, who were all extremely sociable and demonstrative.

It was then time to harness up our dogs.  The dogs know exactly what we’re doing, want desperately to be picked, and use every inch of their chains and decibel in their barks to try and convince us to take them.  When you get to a dog, they’re so excited that harnessing them and getting them to the sled is a full body workout.  In theory, you straddle the dog, holding it in your thighs, unhook its chain, pull the harness over its head, then lift their front legs through the leg holes, and lead them to the sled.  In practice, you uselessly straddle the dog, unhook its chain, full-body tackle it when it tries to break for the sled, use a Greco-Roman wrestling hold to get its legs in the harness, then carry it to its spot in the team — I can’t imagine trying to get these dogs somewhere that they didn’t want to go.

My favorite dog was Ike, a particularly big, strong, and excitable lunk who would go through a concrete wall to drag a sled.  After attaching him to the sled, I was bent double with my hands on my knees, gasping.

Once the dogs were harnessed up, we were all sweating a lot in our suits, and the dogs were violently lunging against the snow anchors holding the sleds in place while yelping at the tops of their lungs.  With Allison and I on the trailing sled, and Lizi and Audun on the lead sled, we set off.

The only control on a dogsled is a brake you stand on to dig it into the ground — if you’re not braking, the dogs will run.  Audun could yell at the lead dogs to turn them, but except for these especially smart lead dogs, they just run forward, until you tell them to stop.

Really peaceful, really beautiful, and really easy.  We sledded for a couple hours, until it started to get dark and we stopped to set up camp.

Camp topology in Svalbard is determined by the threat of polar bears.  The dogs are anchored into the snow in a ring around the tent, where they make an excellent alarm system and first line of defense.

In addition, we were taught to use the flare pistol and Audun’s rifle, both for polar bear defense (later we would learn polar bears rarely go where we were, so we were safer than Audun’s intro of “If I am breathing, I get the gun, but you should know how it works just in case,” made us initially feel).

While we set up the tent, Audun went to work building us a toilet out of snow bricks.  Featuring a wind break, a privacy wall, and a snow bowl, it was far more complex than the hole in the snow I was expecting.

The ladies request that any success or lack thereof they may have experienced peeing with all those clothes on be kept privileged.

That night, we had a bonfire, some rehydrated food, and some hot chocolate, while Audun translated to us from an essay by the Norwegian philosopher Peter Zapffe on the value and fragility of outdoor places.  The stars were innumerable, and there were some faint Northern Lights.  An incredible evening.

We slept with everything on but our suits, so we could move quickly in case of a bear appearance.  Our sleeping bags were incredibly warm, and we all got some sleep, despite a certain amount of canine social activity outside (one of the younger dogs was on his first overnight, and insisted on sitting on other dogs that were trying to sleep — Audun moved him next to Ike, who wouldn’t put up with that nonsense).  In the morning, we woke up, and had a stretch.

We ate some rehydrated breakfast, found which dogs had been anchored too close to the highly chewable bamboo tent stakes, broke down the toilet and camp, packed up, and re-harnessed the dogs.  They wanted to run again!

By the time we got in, the dogs were rolling in the snow to cool down.

We were back at the hotel early afternoon, after more than 24 hours in the Svalbard cold.  Definitely one of the coolest things I’ve ever done!