A day without animal interaction is perhaps not a day wasted, but surely a little sad. The women of Horses of Taiga -- Flo and Rianne -- must feel the same given the plan they had for the one day we’d spend away from the horses.

Now, I’ve gone dog sledding in the U.S. and it was a blast.  But that involved nestling into a pile of blankets in a sled being driven by a professional musher.  Here, it’s quite a different experience.

We arrived at the kennels of New Hope Alaskans and were immediately handed liability waivers.  These signed, we were introduced to our sleds and wildly howling dog teams.  The instructions were pretty simple – keep a good distance from the sled in front of you; driver, never let go with either hand and always be ready to stomp on the break; rider, try not to drop anything; and, if you tip over, hug the sled so we don’t lose a team.

I jumped in the sled, ‘voluntelling’ Kurt to take the first turn at the helm.  And we were off. Kurt did a masterful job balancing the sled and riding the foot brake to keep us upright and off the sled in front of us.  After about 45 minutes, we switched, and I got to drive home.  It was tremendous fun. I’m so glad my first REAL experience mushing was at age 58.  Had this happened at 28, I might have moved to Alaska and become one of those crazy people you see on Nat Geo.

To say these animals live for the time they spend in the harness doesn’t come close to capturing the joy they feel doing their job.  And, I think the emotional health of these beautiful dogs is best proven by the fact that when the 20 dogs that had powered our four sleds were released with us in the kennel, each and every one of them ran up and asked for cuddles without a snarl or a nip exchanged. At home, I’ve never entered a dog park without wondering which precious pooch was the most likely to snap at me or take a hunk out of my pet. 

After our sledding, it was off to have a reindeer grill lunch with a Sami gentleman who welcomes visitors to his winter reindeer camp.  Though reindeer are indigenous to Northern Sweden, they are not considered wild animals.  Rather, each reindeer is claimed as the property of a particular Sami family.  For generations, the Sami followed reindeer herds as they made their seasonal migrations between the mountains and the lower elevations. Today, reindeer still spend about half the year roaming free, but Sami families work cooperatively in the summer to gather and ‘brand’ (via ear clipping) the young animals and again in the late autumn so some can be harvested and the others contained in large fenced paddocks to be fed through the winter.

After our lunch and a very informative conversation about reindeer management, our host took us to one of the fenced paddocks and let us mix with his herd.  These are amazing animals with fur so dense, you can’t touch skin as hard as you try to burrow through.  They have massive, flat, split hooves that act like snowshoes .  And, the females make the decisions for the herd! Perhaps that’s because the males carry their testicles high up in their abdomens to protect them from the cold, but regardless, an apt lesson given today is Kurt and my anniversary!

To make our horse-free but animal-rich day complete, we spotted two moose on our drive home.