THE TRUTH ABOUT DOG SLEDDING IN FINLAND
A bucket list experience we now regret
As you may be able to tell from the title of this blog post, we’ve got a bit of a controversial topic to talk about. As a channel that builds itself as showing the reality of travel, this story couldn't go untold.
If you're new here, we call ourselves not influencers, just from the nature of the business model. We just film our own vacations and put them on Youtube, and we’re able to travel so much because we own our own business “Tripped Travel Gear”. One of the by-products of that, and what we think makes us unique, is that while we don't want to have negative experiences on our vacations, when we do, we can still share it honestly with you.
FINLAND
We journey 250km north of the arctic circle for a nordic adventure through the popular tourist destination of lapland. Lapland is a region that spans across Sweden, Finland, Norway and parts of Russia and has about the same number of reindeer as people. It’s one of the best locations in the world to see the Northern lights, and to dog sled.
DOG SLEDDING COMPANIES
Tim planned most of the dog sledding part of our trip. Originally we wanted to do a multi day (3 nights) dog sledding trip to make the experience as big and “magical” as possible, but because we were booking only a few weeks before our trip, most tours were fully booked. Looking back, that was probably a blessing in disguise.
Once you’re using animals in tourism, there's a very fine line. We chose our specific tour provider based on the fact that they had an ethics page on their website where they discuss how they care for their dogs compared to some other companies in the region. Also, knowing dogs, we know that they’re working animals and love being physically active, and we know that our own dog Pepper would be stoked to do dog sledding if she physically could.
We arrived at the establishment in utter chaos, dogs were barking and winging, it was loud. After we got dressed, we headed into the dog pen. Having no idea what to expect we showed up to the noisy pen area, and of course were so excited to see the dogs! We were greeted by a bad boy who had gotten off leash and was being called back. Our host caught him and handed him to one of the guides who lifted him off the ground by the back of his neck beating him over the head.
"With this many dogs it's important to keep them in line" she leaned over and told us before heading back to tend to guests at breakfast. Alone in the pen, we watched guides strap up dogs while we prepared our cameras and warm layers.
DOG SLEDDING FINLAND
With nothing but a brief tutorial on how to break, we were each placed on a sled and our leader took off in front and we just assumed to follow. The heavy snow from the previous day's storm quickly began to pile up on our sleds. The dogs leapt over a meter tall mound of snow built up from the road snow plow and when my sled hit and tipped sideways, I quickly jumped off to protect myself.
Off the street and into the next snowbank to approach the trail I worked on clearing snow while the jumping dogs tangled in each others lines. The support man drove up to my sled again to untangle the team, beating the most enthusiastic of the barking dogs while he completed his work. This was the most adrenaline filled first 15 minutes of any activity I've ever done anywhere in the world. Without complicated maneuvers on and off the road it was fairly straight forward navigating the sled and the break, leaning into turns with the sled.
The first few hours of the day I really tried to put the morning behind me, and I did! I was flustered, it was so loud, I was covered head to toe in 30 extra pounds to stay warm, I had gopros clipped to me, I was cruising at 15mph - maybe I was just overwhelmed? The dogs were happy, right? They were running well, navigating the terrain, and stopping on queue.
After about 3 hours I couldn't believe we hadn't stopped to rest the dogs, right as we pulled up to a Finnish laavu or teepee. We sat inside and met other riders with other guides as soup and warm drinks were prepared.
At lunch, having an introverted day, I opted to spend my time with the dogs. I hadn't actually met any of the dogs on my sled yet and I slowly approached two shaking and curled up together. The second pulled back its ears and lowered its head as a sat but I held out the back of my hand to the first. He allowed me to stroke his head. I sat looking around at all the dogs from all sleds. Many were shaking, some holding up back paws off the ground and to be fair, some were just sleeping fine or looking around.
Now with a closer look, the metal wire harnesses seemed cold and coarse. I pointed out injuries to the guide like a bloody ear, Tim let them know about a bloody paw they promised to wrap before we took off again. I did my best to ask "what's next"?" to our guide. "It's up to you" he said, "we’ve booked another 3 hours”. A quick look to each other and Tim suggested, it would be getting dark soon and we could just head back.
The dogs saw us exit the tent and knew it was time to hit the road again.
PERSONAL THOUGHTS
At the time, I didn't know if I was jet-lagged and over emotional but I can say that only with time, I can't believe I reacted that well. I'm so upset by this, those dogs weren't even huskies, they were thin, shivering 40 pound mutts who were flinching at human interaction. I feel so sick we were part of the problem by being paying customers but all I can think is I hope this video and blog post can help educate anyone who wants to have this experience.
Other people we met up with at lunch were having a great trip and we also met other repeat customers. I'll just say, as dog owners you know when a dog is happy and healthy, and you also know when it’s not.
DOG SLEDDING TOURISM
After we got back from the trip, Tim did further reading on the internet. He found out that huskies are in fact not a traditional means of transport in Finland. They are now bred, and are absolutely being exploited, for tourism purposes. It has gone from a few hundred huskies in the whole of Finland to breeding around 10 thousand dogs in the last decade or so. There are also no set criteria of how the dogs have to be ethically looked after. Here is an article giving you some tips on how to vet your company and how to avoid going through what we did: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/husky-sledding-lapland-finland/index.html
If you're booking in Finland and want to avoid the place we used, just DM on Instagram or send us an email and I'll be happy to share the name, it’s just not our business publicly shaming anyone.
