Arctic Happenings

Quick recap: I ended up at a husky farm, which was not suitable for me (due to floor scrubbing n’ more). I quickly scooted out of there and had an amazing night in the wilderness, before the start off my next day brought me to my next journey. Hopping on a bus, headed to a new husky farm, which I barely spoke with, I wondered, “what am I doing, and will I even be picked up at the bus stop?” Having my worries relieved I was picked up and told I’d be training 26 dogs for a 1,200 km race, while living in a tiny home.

Puppies will NOT be still for a picture 🙂

Have you ever noticed how leaving a familiar place and making a change can be nerve racking, even if that familiar place was one that you disliked? I was nervous arriving on this husky farm called Akaskero, which is home to over 500 dogs. I Wondered if the people were going to like me, if I would like them, and heck, what being around 500+ dogs would bring.

I step out of the car and the first person I meet is Jerry, a famous veterinarian from the U.S. who is travelling all around Europe to teach about dog handling and care. In the first few hours of my experience at Akaskero, I’m filled with knowledge, exactly what I was looking for from this experience. The workers come up to me, they introduce themselves, I’m taken care of, brought to a grocery store, and then have a beer with a French and a German. What was I thinking? People seem to be caring, and want to do good no matter where you go. This just strengthens my belief that people are innately “good” and needless to say (but I will say it anyways :p), my worries fade.

slabs of local Norwegian Salmon in the kota

My worries for hunger fade too as I find myself the next night sitting around an open fire in a Kota. Salmon is being cooked in the traditional Finnish way with it nailed to a board and stood next to the fire. My senses are being filled, shadows dancing from the fire light, the smell of roasting salmon, the feel of thick reindeer fur under me, and the sounds of three different languages being spoken around me at once. A smile pops on my face as I revel in the present moment.

The northern lights, which were talked about in “Winterdance” (poor camera quality)

Of course, with all the foreign languages being spoken, I find myself speaking my native tongue with the only American, Jerry. We reminisce about New England, the clam chowdah, Dunkin Donuts (no donuts were harmed in the making of this blog), and of course he says, “pahk the cah in the hahvahd yahd.” Man, if I had tickle for every time I had heard that maybe it’d actually be a genuine laugh. But in all seriousness, it’s intriguing exploring the world of dog sledding through Jerry’s mind, and come to find out he knows Gary Paulsen, the author who wrote the book that inspired this journey of mine. Actually, he doesn’t only know him, but is good friends with him. I tell Jerry about “Winterdance” and its influence on me, and he laughs saying, “I trained and gave Gary 4 of the dogs that he ran the Iditarod with in that book.” I begin to realize the interconnectedness of it all, and feel I am where I should be.

duh tiny abode

This feeling was only heightened after I crossed the border to Sweden and I arrived at my tiny house. Nowadays I wake up with a view from my front porch of the dog kennel where 26 racing dogs live. These dogs are super athletes. Yes, they have names like Zephyr, Kobuk, Yeti, but really the names should be like Dean Karnazes, Scott Jurek, Floyd Mayweather, or Tom Brady. Actually, that just wouldn’t do them justice because these dogs, in terms of endurance, blow any human being out of the water.

The other day, for an easy training day, they did over 75km, more than a marathon, and not to mention while pulling an ATV. But that’s what you gotta do when training for a 1,200 km race. What gives these incredible animals the real upper hand in nature and allows them to perform these races is their bodies’ ability to switch their metabolism to burn fat, compared to humans who mainly run off of carbohydrates. In a race of 1,200km, the dogs will burn about 12,000 calories a day and they’re only 40-60 lb beings. Imagine this, an 8 year old boy taking down 24 big macs! Now the documentary “Super Size Me” didn’t shut down McDonalds, but I have a feeling seeing that would.

On that easy training day, we had put the dogs on the gangline and they were ready to run. The excitement from the dogs was unreal. The only thing I could compare it to is a bag of popcorn in the microwave, but instead of kernels popping, it’s jumping barking huskies. They were off, and with power! The training session ends because the musher of 30 years who I am learning under decides the dogs feet are getting too banged up from the rough ground. This is what makes a good musher, knowing the dogs. It’s really not about driving the sled as much as building a relationship with the animals. Dog sledding is not a science, it’s a philosophy.

Playing fetch with my favorite dog, Rusty.

This is where I went wrong. Coming here I had this Western mindset, I wanted to be told everything, to have all the information given to me, and be rich with knew knowledge. But in an art where there is no right way of doing it, only wrong ways, this is not how it is mastered. Sure, I could ask “what” and “who” is this? I would get the answer that is an Alaskan husky and his name is Rusty, but that tells me nothing about the true nature of the dog. All it does it categorize him so that I can tell him apart from another breed and another Alaskan husky. However, to truly understand and know the dog one must observe it with a silent mind. In Taoism this is called kuan or “wordless contemplation.” This is the secret to the art of mushing.

Maybe this wordless contemplation is what the Chukchi tribe discovered 4,000 years ago in order to use sled dogs to survive. When this nomadic tribe hitched the first dog to a sled it allowed them to extend their hunting grounds in a time of food scarcity. A relationship was formed between two different species, which relied on each other for survival in the harsh Siberian conditions. In order for this to continue the musher needed to know the dogs, and the dogs needed to know they could trust the musher. If the musher observed the dogs, and could see what was best for them, then the dogs trusted him/her.

The skies look like this for the majority of the hours of light.

This is essentially what I am trying to recreate, but without the “survival castaway” drama. I am doing this with 26 dogs, and at the end of the day I find I’m happy. But the weird thing is by society’s standards I shouldn’t be. I’m living in a small house on the back of a truck, I constantly pull dog hair out of my mouth, I don’t have much money and am making none, the little clothes I do have smell like dog, and there is 2 hours of light a day (we lose 25 minutes of light a day, so if you divide, add, do an algebra equation and carry the 1…that means the sun will not rise in 5 days!). However, just typing that out gets me stoked! We need to define happiness for ourselves. Maybe you do define happiness by the million dollar job, the large house, or being famous, but I would challenge you to think critically about that. Go out, learn what it is that makes your insides sing and do it.

Customers heading out!

 

 

Arctic (Mis)Happenings

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.

Bering trying to figure out how to get that treat 🙂

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!), Hammering out meat. Closest I've been to being a butcher.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?

“It’s too cold to get up”

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.

Look at all those furry butts!