Latitude 46 degrees north, 203 kilometers into the arctic circle, 243 sled dogs, and I’m 2 weeks in with a 14 hour a day 6 days a week schedule. Sleep is lacking. It sounds like a shitty situation, and as I put my right foot down into a fresh pile of dog poop, I hear a squish, I almost slip,  and then realize how literal that term is. Over the past 2 weeks I’ve become a master pooper scooper, and a detailed analyzer of all things excreted. Now I’m struggling to understand why I’m here.

I have to think back to why I came – it was for knowledge. I wanted to learn how to train, take care of, and of course, run sled dogs in the arctic.

How does one come to want this in life? It’s simple, from Gary Paulsen, you remember him, the young adult author who wrote “Hatchet.” Turns out not only are his characters in his books bad asses, but he’s one too. Plainly put, with no science behind it, Paulsen ran the Iditarod and wrote a book about his experiences called “Winterdance” and this inspired the hell out of me, and from that point on I knew I needed to learn how to run dogs.

Fast forward two years from that read; I’m in the arctic circle of Finland, next door to where dog sledding originated some 4,000 years ago in the cold winds of Russia’s Lake Baikal. I’m here on a work exchange with a husky farm called Hetta Huskies. I give my labor and in return I learn the things I talked about wanting to learn. The reality though is only one end of this deal is being upheld, and fortunately for me, it’s my side. You know, it’s always worst for you to not keep your word than it is for someone to not keep their word to you. I see that it’s hard to teach someone when you have 243 dogs. All you have time for is to tell them what to do. It’s been a blur. Cutting 110 lbs of frozen meat a day with a hatchet (36,500 lbs a year!), harnessing, running, de-harnessing, petting puppies, feeding, cleaning, annnd breath. So, now that I’m across the Atlantic in a foreign country what, do I do? Do I keep cleaning the women’s house who owns the business, or get out?

Well damn right I didn’t come over to my ancestor’s country to find myself literally scrubbing the floor of some Brit! Sayonara and tah-tah Mo-F@$#%! I say as I walk out (in my mind of course:)).

I believe if something isn’t going right, change it. There might be some guilt there, as there was in my situation. I felt bad leaving early, and even worse when it wasn’t received well. I made a mistake. It’s okay, We all make them; lets try and leave the guilt behind because mistakes are how we learn. We shouldn’t let guilt hold us back from changing our existing situation. Instead of feeling guilty, and accepting our position, admitting our mistakes and changing them is what’s best.

I was now on the foreign streets of the 800 person town, walking with just a backpack. I was disappointed, I felt like a failure. I had come all this way for a dream, and now where was I? Where was I going? I figured I’d go to the one camping spot on top of a hill I had heard of, and only heard of. “There’s a fireplace on top of that hill over there” and “If you go up that hill there’s a 3 sided shelter on top” were the two things I’d heard. I swear Forrest Gump’s voice came into my head and said “you just gotta walk up the hill” and in a true Miley Cyrus fashion I made the climb. As I did I realized I had a lot of happiness flowing through my veins because of where I was at, and my new situation. This is exactly why I had left Hetta – I was unhappy. It didn’t matter that I was unsure if the future would be better or worse, because what I had learned from my mistake at Hetta was I could always change my situation if needed. Or did I learn anything at all?

Because at that moment I decided that the next day I was going to go to another husky farm.

With the decision made I reached the peak. Upon arrival I saw a suh-weet Kota, a tipi like structure that the indigenous Sammi used, with a giant fireplace, and wood already there. Score! A fire and roasted garlic is all I needed while listening to some podcast I’d never remember as I fell asleep.

I woke up to an awe-inspiring sun rise that was like a symbol of rebirth from my old situation into my new beginning in Lapland. I scrambled around to get my camera, taking pictures, then 15 minutes later again, and again. Each time thinking it’s the most beautiful part of the sun rise. Anyone who’s tried to capture the beauty of the sun rising or setting knows how this goes. Except this far north the sun rises for about 2 hours, so you have more than two ticks, as the English would say. I felt like a squirrel at a full bird feeder, taking the food and scramblin’ back for more, but the food wasn’t going anywhere.

With the morning sun risen the day was in full swing. Skeptical and faithless, but trusting nonetheless in my plan I hopped on a bus towards the new husky farm. I had no phone, no wi-fi, and apparently I was being picked up by the owner who I had exchanged e-mail with maybe twice. The obvious question crossed my mind, what if he’s not there? Golly, I didn’t even think of plan B, but I figured I’d get to that letter if that part of the alphabet needed to be sung. It didn’t. I was picked up in a Volkswagen truck, and told I’d be living in a tiny house while helping train 26 dogs for a 1,200 km race. Lets see where this brings me.