“When you work on the Hetta farm, you don’t even know if they have finished building the tunnel, let alone be able to see the light at the end of it.” This is a quote from a co-worker of mine Doris Kallen and it sums up perfectly our life over the past two months or more. The pace has been utterly relentless and I’ve pushed myself to an extreme that I’d never really thought possible. Since my last blog we’ve been knee deep in our client season and it has been intense, frantic, fascinating and truly exhausting. Working here just isn’t your typical volunteering experience, nor is it like any other job I’ve known. It’s not so much a volunteer programme, but more like an intensive training school for dog-sledding guides if you allow it to be that. In saying that, I feel like the tunnel is being built and perhaps the light is beginning to shine at the end. While I do not have a leaving date just yet I feel like I’m coming to a natural end to my time here. We’ve got a batch of new guys in now who we are working hard on training up and most of the people I’ve been with since the start are either leaving soon or have already left. I feel like I’ve put a hell of a lot in to this place, but I’ve also got a hell of a lot out of it. Looking back to the naive kid running around with dogs like a headless chicken at the start of December, I feel pretty proud of the guy I am now, leading safaris and passing on the knowledge I’ve gained to those who are now taking over the reins. It’s been immense, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about leaving, but it certainly feels like the time has come.
I don’t even know where to begin when trying to describe the last two months. I feel like too much has happened to condense it all in to a blog post, but I’ll try. Taking over from my last blog, the month of December was long and dark and now seems like a hectic, mental blur. I feel like I didn’t sleep for weeks and that I spent the vast majority of the month running around in the gloomy Arctic winter darkness. The sun disappeared and the clouds moved in and everything turned grey. It was in this setting that we found ourselves caught up in a tidal wave of tourists moving through the farm looking for that ‘experience of a lifetime’ and ‘tick that box’ and say they’ve done it. Some days we moved incredible numbers of people through the two farms and I like to think the vast majority of them got what they’d wanted. An example of one of these days for us would be a 6am start in order to feed the farm by 6:30am for an 8:30 arrival time. Once feeding was done we’d start laying out the sleighs and making the farm presentable (getting rid of poo and yellow snow mostly) for the arrival of our clients. Sometimes we’d be preparing up to eight or ten teams with six dogs in each. The clients arrive by the bus load and are given a 15-20 minute safety briefing and driving instructions before being split in to two groups and then further divided amongst the sleighs. Each sleigh can hold two adults and a child, maybe two children if small and so one half of the group will get on to their sleighs and prepare for their sled ride, while the other half can take photos of the dogs and have some hot juice in our teepee (kota). We run up and down the lines untying and unchaining the first group and set them off on our 2km track which takes approximately 10-15 minutes to go around. Half way through, the adults in the sleighs get the opportunity to swap from being a passenger to a driver and then continue back in to the farm so we can get them out and get the next group in as quickly as possible and without any dog fights or tangles or problems. Some days we had four bus loads of people, which meant eight laps of the two kilometre track. The whole thing would be finished by 2 or 3pm but it didn’t mean we got any rest. On the weekends leading up to Christmas, these mornings were then followed by putting together five or six 12 dog teams and loading a trailer with dogs and heading off to our Canterbury and Leppajarvi days which I spoke about in my last blog where we drove families of British tourists around an 800m track for four to five hours. On some of these days we would then have to race back to the farm to feed by 6pm for a 8pm Northern Lights safari (as the dogs need to be fed two hours before running) which was a 6km (now a 9km) night time safari with families hoping to see the Northern Lights. We might finish by 10pm (remember, 6am start) but these days were often followed by an evening briefing whereby we would discuss and iron out any problems or issues that had arisen over the day. Getting home before midnight became a treat and 11pm was considered an early night.
It’s hard for me not to resent this type of mass-tourism and not feel snobby towards the people who choose these package deals where they get to tick these things off the ‘life experiences’ list and say they’ve done it. In general they were all really nice and I enjoyed interacting and working with such a mixture of people who genuinely did seem to really enjoy it. People would come and tell us that it was the best thing they’ve ever done and that it was the experience of a lifetime. We had people telling us too that we had the greatest jobs in the world and that we were so lucky. But I couldn’t help but begrudge them and feel that they had little appreciation for the whole process and all the behind the scenes work behind their 2km husky experience. Don’t get me wrong, these comments were much appreciated and did give me some sort of boost, but when you are lifting dog poo at minus 40 at 6am in the morning, it’s hard to think positively.
Christmas and New Year were strange and Christmas Day was perhaps my lowest point here. I missed my family and my girlfriend and I missed doing all the things I like to do at Christmas. Seeing people you haven’t seen in ages, relaxing, eating and drinking. Instead we had a 6am start and a solid 14 hours of work to do before sitting down for a delicious, if overcrowded, Christmas dinner laid on by Anna and Pasi. We relaxed and ate well, but soon the conversation turned to the next day and the realisation that we had another long day ahead of us and another incredibly early start soon put an end to any Christmas cheer. On New Year’s Eve we finished work and were leaving the farm as the clock struck midnight. We rang in the New Year standing in the front yard of the farm and drove quickly in to town to see Hetta’s firework display with a beer in hand while other guides stayed in the car to calm three dogs who were freaking out because of the noise. These are two days I will never forget as long as I live.
But we made it, we got through December and looked forward to a quiet January where we could relax a little and have some free time to perhaps ski and explore the area a little. But this elusive “lull” never arrived and the relentless pace never ceased. This could be attributed to two factors. First of all we very suddenly lost three members of staff. One gave a week’s notice that she was leaving while two others left on a day off with no warning to the rest of us whatsoever. They had their own reasons for leaving, and I don’t bear any grudges, but they left us in a really shitty situation. We were now three people down (two of which were quite experienced while the other was incredibly helpful and useful) and it showed massively. We ran safaris where we felt stretched incredibly thin and we were shuttling people back and forth between the two farms in order to keep the show running. I don’t know if they thought about the effects on the rest of us but their sudden departure was felt heavily by those of us left behind. Even if they didn’t consider that, one of them was dog medical overseer for the Darwin farm and essentially neglected her responsibility to the health and well-being of the dogs out there. It left the dog medical overseer in Hetta with two farms and around 200 dogs to look after and monitor. As I say, they had their reasons for leaving but it’s hard not for me to resent the selfishness of their decisions. Working for the good of the team and for the well-being of the dogs are the two core things that keep us all going in the darker moments, or at least do for me. The second factor was that a company called Adventure Artique had a contract with another dog-sledding farm which shut down, ironically due to all its staff walking out suddenly, and so we received all their safaris for the month of January, on top of all of our own. While we moved away from the mass, quick turnaround tourism of December in some respects, January proved to be just as hard and relentless as December.
But there have been positives. January saw the start of our multi-day safaris where clients are taken off for up to eight days of dog sledding out in the Arctic wilderness and these are altogether a much more positive and relaxing experience. I’ve been lucky enough to have been on a three day multi-day and have just received word that I am going to go on my first five day multi-day safari tomorrow. On these safaris the dogs cover over 50kms a day and both guide and clients get a full day of dog sledding. On my three day safari we had seven hours of sledding on our second day, travelling through some of the most impressive and beautiful landscape I’ve ever seen. Each night we stayed in cabins with roaring log fires and holes in a frozen lake to draw water from. The clients got to know their dogs and you personally and they got to see and be a part of the whole experience properly. They put together their teams before leaving and feed and take care of their dogs while out on the safari. It was altogether a much more authentic dog sledding experience than the 2km loop days. The dogs also run more, but they relax in to a rhythm more and it was great to see my dogs just run without the stress of stopping and changing over every 2kms. I felt like it was everything I’d come to the Arctic for and was a massive pay-off for the hard work I felt I’d put in over December and January. Needless to say, I’m incredibly excited about my five-day safari coming up and I think I’ll be able to write a whole blog post about it.
The other positive recently has been visits from Linda and Gerrardo at the start of January, my little brother last week and an up-coming visit from my girlfriend next week. It’s great to have some friendly faces and to share my experiences out here as I think it’s hard to fully get it across in a blog post. Having my brother here was great and he worked really hard and I think he really enjoyed it. It was great to show him what his crazy brother has been up to running around in the snow with dogs out here and I think because I was training new people he got to see just how much knowledge I’d acquired over my time here. I got to take him out on the back of the snowmobile leading my first 20km safari on my own which was pretty sweet and I was grateful to have his help. I’m extremely excited about having my girlfriend come and visit soon. It’s been hard doing long distance, particularly under these conditions. She’s been working hard too on her PGCE and I’m hoping she’s going to get a good insight into the life I’ve been living out here. I don’t know if she will love it or hate it but I’m sure she’s just going to think it’s nothing short of bonkers.
I couldn’t have a blog post without mentioning the weather. Apart from our week in the beginning of December at minus 40, we had a pretty warm one all in all. In fact there were a few weeks where it was strangely warm for the time of year with a period where the temperature stayed above minus five and even a few days where it went up to plus two. The warmth is good in that it makes it more comfortable for the clients and dogs and for us to some extent. But it’s really hard to get your clothing right for those temperatures as you might dress for minus 10, then run around all day and have the temperature rise to minus five and you sweat, a lot. Then you stand around for a few hours, your sweat goes cold and you start to feel colder than you do at minus 15 or 20. It also caused a problem for some of our tracks which run on frozen rivers and lakes and some of them started to turn soft and slushy so we had to alter some of our routes. Seeing water on a ‘frozen’ lake as you drive across it on a snowmobile is certainly an experience. Then recently we had a few days where the temperature dropped to minus 42 again and on one day in particular I spent 40 minutes on a snowmobile followed by 40 minutes in a sleigh and for the first time I really felt properly cold. This day aside, I feel I’ve dealt with the minus 40 days much better this time around than the first time I experienced it. I don’t know if I am simply dressing better or if I’ve somehow got used to it, but minus 40 isn’t such a big deal anymore and aside from the snot in my nose freezing, it isn’t as unbearable as it was the first time around. I think I’ve come close to getting a cold related injury on two occasions. The first was an evening where I thought I was going to be in the house and threw on a pair of wet work gloves to fill a water canister but got called down to the farm to set some teams off and ran down wearing my wet gloves. I was out for approximately 20 minutes but my gloves froze solid on my hands and three of my fingers went numb for a worrying amount of time. When I got back to the house I felt a painful tingling as the feeling came back slowly but I felt I’d come close to my first frostbite. The other place I’ve come close is across the bridge of my nose which is exposed above a buff and below my hat and so when driving a snowmobile at 40kms an hour when out in minus 40 it takes a serious beating. You feel a biting pain every time the wind catches it and every time you accelerate and you’re left with a glowing red hooter afterwards. For a few days a large number of us were walking around with glowing red faces and noses and some of us wore strips of tape across our noses to prevent them getting exposed and injured even more. What’s incredible is how much the temperatures can fluctuate and we are now back to above minus 10 temperatures and I’m hoping it stays that way for the duration of the multi-day. The problem is however that the warmer days are the least beautiful and the darkest as the clouds move in while the minus 40 days are the clearest, most beautiful days. Some sort of middle ground would be nice however.
The other positive thing about January was the return of the sun. It’s hard to communicate the effect that a lack of sun has but it is pretty immense. Not only did the sun not come above the horizon for the whole month of December, but we also pretty much had complete cloud cover so any light there was coming over the horizon was smothered by the clouds and everything was dull and grey for weeks. I have no doubt it contributed to everyone’s downtrodden mood and made the whole month much harder for everyone. On the 9th January I caught my first glimpse of the sun on my way to Alta in Norway and I can’t describe how incredible it was to see it again. On the first day I saw it come completely over the horizon I was giving driving instructions to a client group in Darwin and I excitedly pointed at the sun and said “look, it’s the sun. The sun is back!” but they all looked at me confused and weren’t that excited. They didn’t get it. But I did and so did the guides I was working with. We welcomed it back with open arms and it immediately lifted our moods, shining colours and light over everything again and making it all much, much more bearable. Our sunrises are now back to beautiful pinks, purples and reds and when the clouds aren’t around we get a beautiful orange thing in the sky for the middle of the day. Welcome back old friend, welcome back.
So I guess I’m in my final few weeks here and while I’m really looking forward to going home to my family, my girlfriend, my friends, to pints of Guinness, Six Nations and copious amounts of food, I feel I have a responsibility to make sure that I’m leaving this place in good hands. I’m far from finished and I feel a duty to show the new guys who’ve come in the high standards that we’ve tried to keep and pass on the knowledge I’ve acquired to a whole new batch of recruits as everyone did when I first arrived. I can’t lie and say that it’s easy, because it isn’t. We are all tired and teaching and making sure things get done right, juggling four new volunteers while also running safaris is incredibly hard. But it must be done. It’s a cycle that is constantly moving here and the dogs here have had many people come through and care for them, but I can’t help feeling that they are as much my dogs as anyone else’s. I’ve put in blood, sweat and tears for these guys and pushed myself to extremes I never thought possible to keep them going, and while they never thank you for it they have worked even harder than any of us. They’ve run an incredible amount recently with our top runner having run over 1000kms this season so far. They are tired, as are we, and it’s going to be up to these new volunteers to look after these guys in the closing stages of our busy season. Never work with children or animals they say, but I say work with dogs. Dogs are frigging awesome.
A Telegraph Article from a guide who worked on our farm last year sums it up pretty well.
Lonan Jenkins' Blog 