Finland/Sweden 3/12/2023 |
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Sunday 3/12/2023 - Reindeer Farm, Hetta HuskiesCraig woke up at 1:30 a.m. and could see the northern lights from bed. I woke up at 2 o'clock, and we both watched them through our glass roof until 2:30. It was so cool to be able to see them from our cozy bed rather than having to go out in the sub-freezing temperatures in the middle of the night. We were very lucky to have the proper conditions for northern light viewing while we were in the perfect locale!We woke up at 6:30 a.m. We took quick, consecutive showers, as hot water here is limited to 10-15 minutes at a time, and takes an additional 30 minutes to reheat. We managed to keep our water consumption low enough that this was not a problem for us. We walked over to breakfast at 7:30. There was a buffet including a waffle maker, cheese, cottage cheese, meatballs, scrambled eggs that were very fluffy like a souffle, bacon, sausage, homefries, coffee, and berry juice. It was delicious. We saw squirrels with long pointy ears outside on the birdfeeder, acting just like our squirrels do at home. This morning we met Taru, our bus driver for the remainder of the trip. She was quite friendly and a great driver in some challenging conditions. The bus was a full-sized coach with plenty of room for our group of 17 to spread out. It even had a bathroom and a kitchenette. We were always supplied with plenty of bottles of water (though they were literally frozen first thing in the morning after spending the night on the bus - so refreshing!) Since tap water is drinkable in Scandinavia, we were able to refill the single-use water bottles at our hotels and therefore cut down on some waste. The bus even had wi-fi! We took a 30 minute drive to a reindeer farm in Sirkka where we met Topi, a member of a multi-generational reindeer herding family. We started out with a reindeer sleigh ride. Each pair of us got into a wooden sleigh lined with reindeer hides. We each had a single reindeer pull our sleigh, and the reindeer walked in sequence, forming a convoy of reindeer sleighs. The reindeer behind us was a bit overzealous, so he would often end up walking beside us. We rode through the forest of snow-covered trees, and it was quite peaceful. We were a bit surprised by the size of the reindeer; they aren't as large as we had expected. This make them easier for people to manage. After our sleigh ride, we went inside one of the farm buildings, and Topi taught us a lot about reindeer herding. His family is of indigeneous heritage, but they are not allowed to call themselves Sámi due to politics. There is clearly a lot to unpack there, and not knowing enough about it, I can't speak to it with authority. But there are haves and have-nots even within the indigenous communities. The same reindeer herding people exist in Finland and Sweden, but they are bound by (what appears to outsiders as) arbitrary rules of who "gets to" identify as Sámi. Sometimes part of a family are deemed Sámi while other family members are not. Nonetheless, Topi's family had traditional Sámi clothing and family artifacts on display, and they follow a Sámi lifestyle. Reindeer are not wild in Sápmi; they are all property. They are technically termed semi-domesticated, and it has been that way for 900-1000 years. All of the reindeer who give the sleigh rides and such are males. Males are castrated before being trained. If they don’t castrate the males, they will fight one another and could become injured. Since it takes 4-5 years to train a reindeer, they want to make the most of their investment and prolong the lifespan (which is naturally around 15 years). Females aren't domesticated/trained; they are kept wild so that they become good proper mothers to their calves. The velvet on the exterior of the antlers protects the reindeer from mosquitoes. Antlers are vascular. If an antler breaks, the reindeer can die of blood loss. Castrated males don't lose their antlers in winter; ergo Santa's reindeer are castrated males. Unlike uncastrated males, they don't clean velvet off their antlers because they are not trying to impress the ladies. We learned about the evolving hardships of reindeer farming. Newly-built windmills in Sápmi (Lapland) disrupt the reindeer’s environment. Reindeer eat lichen, but past overpopulation caused them to eat all of the lichen in the area. Now there is no more in northern Finland, and they must import from the south. Reindeer owners are responsible if there is a car accident when herding across the road. They must be quite cautious, because not only would an accident result in the injury or death of a reindeer, they would also be responsible for damages to the car that hit them. Laws like these make it increasingly difficult for reindeer herders to make a living. Most reindeer farmers need alternate sources of income to make ends meet; hence the tourism. Reindeer herders did, however, receive a positive bump in the price they get for reindeer meat once the Russian border closed (due to the Ukrainian invasion), and reindeer meat could no longer be imported. They get 11.5 Euros / kg for reindeer meat. Instead of branding reindeer to show ownership, herders cut the reindeer's ears in elaborate patterns. Each herder has his/her own mark. Ear mark designs are highly regulated, and must be approved so that they are not too similar to other people's marks. Reindeer herders are eagle-eyed and can spot their particular marks at quite a distance. In midsummer, they need to determine who owns all of the calves which were born in the spring. They take each calf and hang a sign with a number on it, and then they see which mom it goes to. If it belongs to one of their mother reindeer, then the herder marks the calf's ear. It was very interesting to hear Topi tell about his family's experience reindeer herding. We concluded our visit with an incredible lunch prepared by the family. We enjoyed mushroom soup, sautéed reindeer, mashed potatoes, lingonberries, pickles, and berry cake in vanilla sauce. The family showed us great hospitality, and we enjoyed the visit immensely. From there, it was then a 60 minute drive to the Hetta Huskies camp at Kallo. Hetta Huskies owns over 200 Alaskan huskies, but most are at their main farm location in Hetta. This satellite camp in Kallo has 55 dogs. 53 are girls and 2 are castrated males; they have found that mixing genders is generally not ideal. They generally use males on longer multi-day adventures, but for short rides like we were about to take today, females work best. We had ridden a toboggan-style dogsled in East Greenland just before the pandemic shut everything down, but we had never driven a dogsled ourselves. The dogsleds here in Finland were basket-style, the kind that we are used to seeing in TV shows about Alaska, where the driver stands up rather than sitting at the front of the sled. Just knowing that we would be able to drive our own sled, we surmised that these Alaskan huskies must be a lot easier to handle than the chaotic Greenlandic dogs that we had experienced. Those Greenlandic dogs were hard for even their owners to control. And with Craig's balance issues from his MS, we hoped that he would not have a problem standing on the back of the sled to drive. We got a lesson on how to drive (most important thing: never let go!). They taught us how to use the foot brake to slow down/stop. Then they split us into two groups. We were in the second group, so we went into the building and were taught a bit about the dogs while the first group took their ride. Then it was our turn to take a ride. I sat in the basket sled with a reindeer hide over me while Craig drove first. The dogs knew the well-groomed trail, so we didn't need to guide them with verbal cues or anything like that. We just held on while they ran on the track, first through the forest and then on a frozen lake. The dogs were pulling to the right and kept hitting the little stick poles that lined the trail. At one point, the dogs went off the soft shoulder and we tipped a little. Craig did his part and held on to the sled so that the dogs couldn't take off with me in the basket. The support staff came to pull us out of the soft deep snow (which was up to Craig's inseam). We got halfway through the course and then switched drivers. Craig hadn't had a problem with his balance; he was quite comfortable driving the sled. I really enjoyed driving as well; it was so peaceful to be gliding along behind the dogs. The weather was beautiful and sunny. When we reached an uphill slope, we were encouraged to "help" the dogs by using our own foot power to augment our momentum. After 30 minutes, the ride was over. Craig and I felt like we could have driven these dogs all day. It was such a fun activity! As the staff were disconnecting the dogs from their leads, they asked Craig and me if we wanted to help put some of the dogs away in their kennels. The dogs were all very sweet and friendly (one large dog especially was rolling around on our feet), and we were happy to get to spend a little bit of extra quality time with them. They handed me Breeze's leash, and she was so excited that she nearly pulled me off my feet. I had to run to keep up with her! It was amazing how strong a single dog can be! Craig put Uzi and Lark back into their kennels, and then it was time for us to go inside with the rest of the group for a presentation. The owner of Hetta Huskies, Mr. Pasi Ikonen, gave a slide presentation about his adventures outside of dogsledding. He is an accomplished adventure racer. He participated in Eco-Challenge Borneo (which we actually saw on TV back in the day) among others, and he also skied to the South Pole with one other person! It was fascinating to hear his tales and see his photos of his amazing adventures. We then headed back to Northern Lights Village. Craig had a Karhu beer from the minibar while I did some posts on Facebook and Instagram about our day's activities. We met the group in the main building at 7 p.m. for our buffet dinner. I once again drank a lingonberry mule and Craig had a Hölmö IPA. For dinner we had lamb, salmon pasta salad, pike, beetroot falafel, and berry cake with vanilla sauce. At 9 p.m., some of us met with Gosia to go for a short snowshoe walk. The guy at the hotel who was in charge of gear rental seemed to have a problem with Gosia. He seemed to want to get into a power struggle with her about where we hiked, thinking that she didn't know where she was going and mansplaining to her. She kept a cool head and told him calmly that she has been here before and knows where to go. We were impressed by her polite demeanor in the face of such rudeness. We were having trouble getting our snowshoes on, and the guy refused to help us, leaving in a huff. So Gosia was charged with helping everyone in the group to get kitted up. We walked through the forest around the hotel, using flashlights to see where we were walking. We saw some faint northern lights (my camera did not really pick them up). It was about a 45 minute walk. It was quite cold, but our gear kept us nice and warm. My exposed hair froze when in contact with my breath, which had never happened to me before. Craig, however, is used to his moustache freezing. By 10 p.m., we were on our way back to our cabin. We passed the outbuilding that contained the saunas, and a woman in her bathing suit was locked out, pounding on the door. Her cool-off session outside lasted longer than she intended. Though we looked for additional northern lights overnight from the comfort of our cabin, we didn't see any. That's ok, last night's show had been spectacular! We couldn't ask for more. Sirkka Kallo |
 Northern lights viewed from bed in cabin #3  Northern Lights Village, Cabin #3  Reindeer sleigh ride  Reindeer  Topi teaching us about the reindeer herding lifestyle  Dining room  Reindeer  Dogsledding  Sled dogs  Dogsledding See all photos from March 12 |
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