Shock-frozen

Wow, how did that happen?! On Monday, we were surprised by a frozen landscape and extremely energetic dogs. Reason enough to finally extend the route - through the holiday home area, past the boat harbor, to the end of the paths that can be conquered by car. The tour is now about 18 km and takes just under 2 hours, anything beyond that, which means over the hopefully soon frozen Altevatn, can only be done by sled. The animals had plenty of energy and fun, and after we humans put on an extra jacket and thick winter boots between both tours, we could also enjoy the frosty nature :) Unfortunately, on Wednesday, the temperatures rose well above zero again, and frost and sun turned into rain and mud. On Wednesday, Eric, Kim, and I visited our partner farm, the Bardu Husky Lodge, and got many great impressions of life there. The 65 dogs there are almost exclusively Alaskan Huskies, and this is extremely noticeable in the interaction and mood between the dogs - this breed is much more sociable and less aggressive towards each other. All the 'troublesome' characteristics have been bred out of the relatively young breed, so they hardly have a hierarchical thinking and act less instinctively and unrestrainedly. The teams there can even pass each other!!! That may sound unspectacular to you, but it amazed Eric and me. If we happen to meet each other by chance during the lead dog training (each team drives through the village in a zigzag pattern to teach the lead dogs the directional commands), even with a distance of 200 m, it's already a state of emergency! In any case, it was very interesting to see the differences. Nevertheless, we were also looking forward to our wild and robust pack at home :) For these cuddly moments (see photo, Kodiak is one of the strongest mischief-makers here), we also take on the challenges of these untamed breeds ;)
Due to the cold, we already had abnormally beautiful Northern Lights on Monday at around 7:30 pm, which stretched from left to right across the entire sky. Even scraping poop in the evening was fun :D Because in the rain and darkness, it has its pitfalls - 'Oh, poop! Oh no, just a rock. Oh, poop! No, just a rock. Ah, a rock. Oh crap!!!' :P