Sometimes things don’t go according to plan, this time meaning my snowmobile excursion in Longyearbyen, Svalbard turned into a dog sledding trip. Was I happy about it? No… I’m OK with winging it, sometimes, and this was one of those times – kinda why not? In hindsight I should have known better, hanging out with Huskies just isn’t me… The crappy weather probably didn’t make things better 🙁 After being picked up at the hotel, dressed up in suitable gear (they provide everything you need, just know that nothing comes in petit 🙂 ), we left for the dog yard. Once there we had to get the dogs ready for the trip – harness, gangline etc, and then we were off into the wilderness, in teams of two. Me being the usual party of one was teamed up with the guide. We have now reached the point where I’m suppose to start raving about the spectacular scenery I witnessed. Well…, with shitty weather comes shitty views, and since I’m from Arctic Norway the landscape didn’t impress me much… Sorry for the downer! However we did have one “action-filled” episode on our ride. On our way back, when it was my turn to mush the dogs, in an inattentive second I suddenly found myself on my back, dragged by the foot. As all went well, we had a good laugh at least 😀 Another less fun incident was one of the dogs in my team collapsed of exhaustion. Just horrible! Back at the dog yard, we got the dogs back in each of their houses, fed them, and headed back to the hotel. End of story would be: dog sledding might have been more fun in better weather, but I’d say you need to be into dogs, beyond having them as pets, to find this especially enjoyable…
I went with Spitsbergen Travel, which I had been recommended by my relatives living in Longyearbyen. Spitsbergen Travel is also widely used by travel agents and corporate clients.
I hope the dog which collapsed of exhaustion is doing ok now? :p
I hope so too! It rode in the sled back to the dog yard. The guide said something about it had been sick earlier. I’m thinking it shouldn’t have been used for this trip, but what do I know…
I loved your emoticons changing through the story. I still would like to try this
🙂 If you like dog handling, you should go for it. I’m up for snow mobile next chance I get. Fingers crossed for nice weather, for both of us 🙂
Gosh, I think it’s fair to say that we would probably be in the pro dog sledding camp in our family. Coooool. Except for the dog exhaustion mind you. How odd. You don;t think about that happening.
Then you’ll probably enjoy it a lot! The dog collapsing was horrible to witness. I basically thought it died!
Shame about the weather – the pictures of Svalbard always look so beautiful! Lovely honest post though 🙂
Arctic Norway is very beautiful, and definitely warrants a visit! But IMO you can find more beautiful scenery elsewhere in this part of the country than on Svalbard. At least from what I saw…
I enjoyed dog sledding a lot when I tried it, just after christmas, in Finnmark. Hos many dogs did you have? I had four, and our trip went through the forrest and down hills, culminating on a frozen river where the northern light greeted us. I’m sorry to hear you didn’t enjoy it as much as me, the weather is more important than we want it to be at times :/
I’m glad you had a good time! Had seven dogs on my team.