My final adventure in Greenland was a 2 day dog sled expedition. There were 5 of us going and each of us had our own dog sled and musher. We got the bus to a hut to put on our sealskins. It was going to be cold sitting on a dog sled for 6 or 7 hours each day for 2 days, they recommended we hire them, so we all did. I hired boots too, but they weren’t sealskin boots and they kept my feet no warmer than my own boots. The others on the trip were 2 German couples.
We went to the area where all the dog sleds leave from and the other 4 went to their sleds and I had to wait for mine. My musher was about 15 minutes late, the staff phoned him and they said he was on his way and that he had strong dogs and would catch the others up.
When he arrived on his sledge, he looked to have a lot of dogs. I asked how many dogs there were because it was difficult to count them when they were moving. There were 16 dogs to pull the sledge. I put my camera in the zipped part of the front of my sealskin jacket, the rucksack went on the back of the sledge, I sat on reindeer hides, held onto the string that had everything secured in place on the sledge and we were off. I had been warned that I might have to get off the sledge and walk up hills, but I didn’t have to do that once. These dogs were strong and they were fast. We easily caught the others up. After about an hour we stopped for the dogs to have a rest and then we were off again.
I’ve been dog sledding in Alaska in the summer through the forest and the Alaskan huskies were racing dogs. They ran in pairs in a straight line. The Greenland huskies seemed to be bred more for strength and they don’t run in a straight line, they fan out and bunch together in tighter spots rather than go in front of each other. Going downhill you do have to hang on, it’s like a rollercoaster ride, you go over bumps and the sledge jumps into the air. On steeper downhill sections we were told the dogs would be behind the sledge, but my musher didn’t drive his dogs like that, he always had them in front. He had a brake at the back and also put thick ropes over the runners on the front of the sledge to create some friction and slow us down because his dogs really did run down those hills!
I have to say, if you’re an animal lover and have a pampered pooch at home, dog sledding in Greenland is probably not for you. These mushers are hard on their dogs, they’re not pets, they are working animals relied on for survival, so the treatment of the dogs is definitely strict. I didn’t realise that the dogs would be treated so harshly. The mushers all have whips which are mainly used for steering the dogs, they whirl it around like a cowboy would a lasso to show the dogs which direction to run. However, the mushers aren’t above giving a dog a couple of cracks of the whip if they aren’t behaving. I suppose they can’t afford for the dogs to play up, the dogs need to know who’s in charge; the hunter’s survival could depend on it.
My musher had a young dog that was about 9 months old that struggled to keep up with the others after a while particularly when the dogs were running downhill. I witnessed something on one downhill section and I assumed the reason the dogs generally run behind the sledge when they go downhill was to prevent this happening. We were going down one downhill section and the young dog went under the sledge. I screamed because I thought we’d crushed it to death. Thankfully there is a bit of a gap under the sledge so we didn’t kill the dog. The musher retrieved the dog and tossed it along with the others to carry on running, but it was struggling. I didn’t know if it was hurt, my impression was that the musher was going to make it keep running otherwise it wasn’t going to learn, at least I’m presuming that was the reason the musher gave it a couple of cracks with the whip when it started to fall behind again and decided it had had enough.
On the other hand, on the way back the musher told me he had to watch the struggling dog because he was young and when we were almost back at the end of the second day and this poor dog couldn’t keep up with the other dogs anymore, the musher pulled the young dog onto his lap and was stroking it. So it wasn’t all bad. He pointed out his best dog to me and also his boss dog which were two different dogs.
And of the 5 sledges, my musher definitely had the strongest and fastest dogs. I never had to get off the sledge, quite often the musher sat on the sledge while we were going uphill, even though on some sections I was thinking “we’ll never get up there”. And even if the other sledges started out ahead of us, we always overtook them and arrived first. Another musher tried to take the lead a couple of times, but then my dogs would have to slow down. On the way back, on 2 sections we were so fast and so far in front of the others, we had to wait quite a while for them to catch up which was when my musher told me about his dogs, he had 24 in total, he also hunted reindeer and was a halibut fisherman in the summer months.
On our first day, our second stop was at a hut at about one o’clock where we had a cup of tea and a bar of chocolate. The Germans asked if we would get lunch. I told them, I thought that was it! And I was right! And after that we entered the most impressive landscape on our journey. The scenery was beautiful, a wilderness of snow and mountains and no one else around. But when we went down the hill from the hut we were in fairytale land. It was like being on a sleigh in Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen going through all these ice sculptures, but these were all natural carvings, no people had been here to sculpt this ice.
We came back the same way and the scenery didn’t have the same impact of the first sighting, but I managed to get some photos on the way back. However, you really had to see it, photos simply didn’t do justice to this icy wonderland.
After that we headed through some really deep snow to the glacier. The dogs were working extremely hard to pull the sledge, sometimes the snow was right up to the top of their legs, but they ploughed on. They were incredibly strong dogs.
The mushers encouraged us to do a bit of a walk to view the glacier when we stopped close by, it was a steep and treacherous climb and unfortunately there were no snowshoes or poles for us to use and, more importantly, there was no José. If you can’t manage, the mushers just leave you, they don’t help. The German ladies helped me a bit, but after a while I’d had enough and decided I’d got far enough, I had a good enough view of the glacier and I didn’t think climbing any higher would improve the view.
And then we got back on the sled for the final leg of our first day on the dog sled to our overnight accommodation. There were 2 huts in the distance at the top of a hill. I thought my dogs would never pull me up there, it was too steep, but they did. And we were first again. The blokes had a harder time, they were heavier and their dogs weren’t as strong, so they had to get out and walk up the hills quite a few times, including to the huts. The dogs were tied up and we were all shown our luxury suite.
We’d been told it was basic, we’d seen photos at the tour operator’s office, but we were still all quite shocked just how stark and rustic it was. We didn’t have to share with the mushers, they had their own hut. There was a heater in the corner of our hut, but it was still freezing in there. There was a wooden table and a bench which would seat about 2 or 3 people. Useful for 5 of us! There was a large lower bed with mattresses and one upper bunk. As the Germans were in couples I said I’d go in the upper bunk because there was only room for one person in it. They said there was enough room for me if I wanted to sleep on the lower mattresses, but actually being up there on my own was the best deal, there was quite a lot of room, it was like being in a single bed.
It was so cold in the hut. We all took our sealskins off, but we were sitting around in our coats and the floor was wet from the snow on our boots, so we couldn’t take our boots off. The funniest moment of the evening was when Julia said she didn’t think she would need her house shoes that she’d packed and pulled a pair of slippers from her rucksack! She should have known that luxury suites like this provide you with slippers, you don’t have to bring your own.
The mushers kept coming into our hut at intervals to bring us food, bread and cheese and then chocolate and then tons of butter! And quite a lot of tinned goods.
4 hours after arriving we were still cold, the heater hadn’t adequately warmed our hut and the ice in the pan on the stove that was supposed to be melting to give us water was still solid chunks. The mushers had evidently kept the best fire for themselves because they had their hut window open and were in teeshirts! We were all pretty cold and miserable at this point and kept going out intermittently to see if we could see the Northern Lights. But they didn’t come out until well after midnight and by half past eleven we’d had enough and went to bed.
There was another door in the hut which we optimistically thought might be the toilet. It wasn’t. The ensuite facilities of our luxury cabin in the mountains were The Great Outdoors. Julia and I had been outside earlier to scope out the best place for the toilet, decided the side of the hut with no window was good, privacy and a bit of shelter and as with the ice camping on the ice sheet the weekend before, I drank very little during the day so the toilet would only be necessary once last thing at night and once in the morning before we left.
Yes, I definitely advocate living on batteries so you don’t have to drop your drawers in the snow at the side of a hut in -20 degrees. The German ladies were worse off than me, they needed to go during the day and had to try and get the sealskin dungarees off as well as everything else. It was obviously less of an issue for the blokes.
So after checking for the Northern Lights for the last time we went to bed and as I was up in the penthouse, once I climbed up there that was it for the night, I couldn’t be clambering all over the Germans on the mattress below me unless I desperately needed the loo. After being freezing for most of the evening, by bedtime our luxury cabin was really warm, the heater had finally done its job.
I ended up sleeping in just my thermals and half the night I was on top of the sleeping bag because it was so warm. There was loud snoring from someone so I plugged my iPod in and listened to my music all night, but I slept surprisingly well after initially looking at our Royal Suite in despair. We were all making jokes about when was the waiter going to come with the wine list and stuff because it did all seem so dire at first, but once it warmed up it was bearable. So, yes, I slept, mainly because it was very warm. Much warmer than the tent on the ice camp adventure and I also had a lot more space on the top bunk, it was just like sleeping in a single bed. A bed in a dormitory or a hospital, this was no luxury hotel, but it was nowhere near as uncomfortable as the tent. After initially having my doubts, our mountain lodge was much better than the tent, certainly for sleeping.
The next day we were awakened by one of the mushers bringing us some hot water at 7.30am. So we all rushed to get ready and we needn’t have bothered, the mushers were in no hurry. I pulled my sleeping bag down to try and put it into its holder and Julia said something to her husband and he got the sleeping bag and said he’d put it away for me. I said I was just about to do it, he didn’t have to do it for me, but he said when his wife told him to do something, he did it. Good lad! That’s what I like to hear. I had a muffin and cup of tea for breakfast and then we were ready for off.
We all had to walk down the hill from our luxury mountain lodge; that was the only time I had to walk instead of the dogs pulling me on the sledge. We came back the same way and once again, my sledge was fastest by a long way with my strong fast dogs.
It does get very cold sitting on the sledge, it wasn’t as bad in the sunshine, but it was perishing in the shade and my feet were absolutely freezing, I couldn’t seem to get them warm and I had 4 pairs of socks on under my boots! I kept taking my gloves off to take photos and then put them on again in a hurry and worried because then I couldn’t feel my fingers for 10 minutes. The things we do to get photos… But the scenery was so special, no one else around, very tranquil.
It was something that was wonderful to do as a one off, but I wouldn’t want to be out on that ice sheet hunting and fishing with the dogs on a regular basis. What, I hear you say? You don’t want to rush back to the Royal Suite at the luxury mountain retreat?
I did enjoy it, but I did have a few issues with the dog sledding.
Firstly I was uncomfortable with the harsh treatment of the dogs, which the Germans also commented on. And the dogs were very smelly too, just as an aside.
Secondly it almost felt like we were imposing and the mushers didn’t really want to take tourists out with them. Running round a field for 2 hours in a dog sled, which is what most tourists do, is completely different to doing this 2 day trip. Can you argue that the mushers don’t have to take tourists if they don’t want to? And if it is such an imposition they shouldn’t be taking them anywhere?
We were told it was an authentic experience. I think the office staff were referring to our luxury mountain retreat when they said that.
Have the mushers been more or less forced into it because they can no longer survive with their traditional way of living? But things change everywhere over time. I did still feel like I was intruding, that the mushers didn’t really want to take tourists, they were just doing it for the money.
This was highlighted all the more after spending the previous 2 days with PGI Greenland and the Spanish guides with their impeccable customer service, their obvious enjoyment of their work and their enthusiasm for the activities and the landscape, looking after their passengers and enjoying being with them and getting people to make the most of their excursions. It was a complete contrast to the dog sledding.
The mushers looked after us and made sure we didn’t die. I enjoyed the dog sledding; the scenery was amazing, you really got out into the wilderness and that feeling of solitude and isolation was something special. And the experience of staying in the nearest rival to Raffles is something I’ll always remember.
The enduring memory of Greenland of this undisputed Arctic Princess will be the tours I took with the Spanish guides, both the daytime snowmobiling and the snowshoe hiking, which were exhilarating and amazing, but more than either of those, going out with the whole PGI team that Saturday night on the snowmobile and enjoying the dazzling display of the Northern Lights together. It really doesn’t get much better than that.
I travelled to Greenland in the second half of March 2017.
My dog sledding expedition was booked with World of Greenland Ilulissat who are based in Ilulissat town centre.
I travelled to Ilulissat with Air Greenland from Copenhagen via Kangerlussuaq.
Read more about my adventures in Greenland.
Viewing the Aurora Borealis by Snowmobile
Camp Ice Cap
My First Day in Greenland
Exploring Ilulissat
Snowshoe Hike to View the Kangia
