Shamaani, Kiela, Joiku, Kaapo and Elmeri are ready to get moving. The five huskies are barking loudly and making one thing clear: they want to run. But not yet. Because I am still trying to get settled into the narrow sledge.
But then, we are off! We are part of a column led up front by motorised sledges, with the dogsleds behind.
Once the lines are released, there is no holding the huskies back. But as they lurch powerfully forwards, the next thing I know is I have been dumped backwards in the snow. Newton’s law of inertia proven yet again.
But on the next try, it goes more smoothly. The dogs follow the tracks, but even without them they would know their way through the deep snow around Juha Kujala’s farm, in the town of Kuusamo in northeast Finland.
The reindeer on Kujala’s farm seem to be handling the excursion well, trotting alongside the dogsleds as we race through the forests.