Last Updated on August 24, 2019 by PowersToTravel
Maybe I am a dog person after all?
As a child I loved cats and dogs, but never owned one. My father is allergic to cat and dog dander in a big way, an “air passages close up and you die” kind of way. So I petted the passing dog or cat on the street but never got to take one home. Stuffed animals were my childhood friends, and then live gerbils and guinea pigs.
As an adult I could have forged my own way, however I knew that getting a dog or cat would be tantamount to saying to my father, “You aren’t welcome to stay in my house.” So, bottom line, no dog or cat.
Now they have dogs which are allergy-free, however I have been so long without, and have seen the extremely high costs of maintenance, that I still smile, pat and move on.
That is, until I met Willow.
Studying the adventures available in Longyearbyen, I naturally noted the Dog Carting. In the winter the sled dogs are active, but in the summer, they just hang around. Sled Dog companies offer summer dog carting. The cart is a two passenger / one driver, three wheel vehicle hooked up to a team of dogs. You roll down the road, not over the tundra. In Longyearbyen they are trying to protect the land, and there are only a couple of roads, and that is your limit.
I would have been afraid to do it on my own, but with my husband at my side, the world is my oyster. So, I booked us on a Dog Carting adventure with Green Dog. The only reason I chose that operator is timing. Various tours are conducted at various times and various days, and it takes a mathematician, which I am not, to try to align all the boat trips, Dog Sled trips, ATV trips, even tapas trips, to maximize the time in Svalbard. So, after a great deal of analysis, I selected Green Dog.
All the tours pick you up at the appropriate time in the hotel parking lot. For our tour there were six participants. They drove us in a van east out of town towards the mines. Then we took off on a side road, passed a very large dog-yard, up the hill to the compound.
There we were escorted into a shed to find a proper-sized snowmobile suit, boots, gloves and hat. I struggled, as I always do. I wear a pump and every changing of clothes is an adventure with the risk of the infusion set getting stuck and potentially pulling out. Care is required. Unfortunately, the suit I grabbed, which I expected to fit, turned out to be mis-labeled. So, I put it back, and put on a smaller labeled suit, to find that since the first one was mis-labeled, the smaller one was too small. By that time everyone was out of the shed. I struggled out of the small suit, back into the original one, in desperation. I struggled to find appropriate pockets for my glucose tablets, granola bars and juice packets. I bolted out into the yard, dripping sweat, the pant portion of my suit dragging in the dust.
The weather in Svalbard was much warmer than expected. I expected temperatures around the high thirties (Fahrenheit) and instead they were in the high forties, and by the end of the trip into the mid-fifties. For a woman in the midst of hot-flashes, the heavy suits we were expected to wear were torturous!
The guides explained that the dogs were very dirty, that in fact everything around was covered in coal dust from the mines. We were welcome to wear our own mittens and hats, but she recommended we use theirs. By this time, I was fatigued and wondering about my ultimate success in this adventure. We scrambled back into the vans and drove down to the dog yard.
At the dog yard, the guide explained that not only were we going to drive the dogs, we were expected to harness them and hook them into formation. It was hard to hear the guide for the racket of approximately one hundred dogs barking and howling. Each dog had his own little house on stilts, with a name placard on it, and a water bowl. Each was chained to his little house. The houses were lined up in rows, I later learned, because the dogs are generally run in teams, and the teams were lined up in the yard. They strained at their chains trying to reach us. It was a frightening scene.
“Pick a dog, any dog in these four rows,” yelled the guide. “Then following my instructions, put the harness over the dog’s head, and re-chain them to the house.”
Greg and I headed into the yard, passing by one very aggressive dog, to a smaller dog, who, nonetheless looked ferocious. “Hold her between your legs and don’t let go! Unchain her to slide the harness over her head, gently bend her legs to go into the sections of the harness, and then re-attach her!” I couldn’t possibly remember all the instructions in the face of so many teeth.
So, we stopped at “Willow’s” house. She jumped on me; Greg grabbed her chain, “Hold her between your legs!!!!” I managed to get astride the dog while she attempted to lick my face. I tried to pull the harness over her head. “No! You’re doing it the wrong way!” Greg grabbed the harness, pulled it over the wiggling head, I grabbed a flailing leg, and managed to get it in the harness, grabbed the other. Greg re-attached her and suddenly we had fully harnessed sled dog in our arms. Willow was so very happy to be part of this adventure. She bounded and licked my face and barked.
We made our way back to the sleds to find out that we had just harnessed a dog for a different sled and that we would be getting a different row of dogs. I sadly watched as Willow bounded for a different guest, licking and smiling; I was so quickly forgotten.
The guides then did the actual job of hooking up the dogs to the harness. Greg stood in the cart holding the brakes, and, and I stood at the head of the team trying to keep them in a straight line as dogs were added. We got a crazy team. One of our lead dogs was in heat, and several other dogs were going so crazy for her that I could hardly control the mob. At least after having bonded with Willow, I wasn’t afraid of them or their teeth anymore. I just pulled the chains and gave them my most managerial and stern screams. One of our dogs threw up. Greg told the guide and we immediately got a new dog. Apparently the dog was sick. But unfortunately that meant that not only did we have a lead dog in heat, but we had another pair that was not usually paired. They yanked and competed with each other the whole time.
The guides got the dogs attached and away we went. Earlier, I had told the guide that I was diabetic, that I had juice and supplies in my pockets, and my husband knew how to take care of me. Sometimes it makes for awkward trips, having to tell people, but if you don’t, sometimes it becomes even more awkward if I have to take a break and people don’t understand and think I am a “lazy American.” So, the guide looked a little hesitant and said, “I’m with you, then!”
That made our trip an excellent experience. We got the guide and the gun! She also led our team off first. We didn’t know at the time how important that would be. No, we did not meet any dangerous animals, just water.
Away we went down the road, Greg driving, or rather hanging onto the brakes, me in the front seat with the bucket between my legs, and the guide hopping on and off.
Oh, the bucket? That was to water the dogs. The weather was terribly hot for the dogs, even though they were no longer wearing their winter coats. We stopped several times along the road. When the team would stop, it was my job to jump up, run to the side of the road, down the gully, fill the bucket with water, and run back and water the lead dogs, then repeat for pair after pair. If I hadn’t been fast enough, the dogs would have dragged the sled down into the stream. Even if the lead dogs were smart enough to stay on the road, the middle of the team would lunge to the side and the entire team would become a tangled mess.
I waddled to the water, my baggy snowsuit almost falling off of me. I filled the bucket, without falling in, myself, and staggered back to the road to water the dogs. They were so happy to see me, it almost made up for Willow’s disloyalty. Again and again I watered them.
Then it was time to start off again. This time I drove, and found the dogs to be so strong. “You mustn’t let them go too fast or they’ll get too hot and exhaust themselves.” My hands cramped from grasping the bicycle-style brake handles. After one section of the run I was ready to hand back the lead job to Greg, and take on the much preferable watering job. I also preferred to face the dogs, giving them their desired water and seeing their smiling faces at each break. Greg got to watch their hind-quarters the entire time. I had read that the dogs might poop, and kick it up in your faces, and I, at ground level in the front of the cart, had been worried. No such problems; maybe in the snow, I don’t know, but not with my Green Dogs.
We drove on the main road, which meant that large trucks rumbled past us from time to time, kicking up clouds of dust. Our sled led the group of three sleds.
Our guide suddenly yelled “Til venstra! Til venstra!” It was gratifying that I could understand the directions of my guide, after having studied Norwegian fifteen years ago, listening to a Baedeker tape in the cassette drive of my commuting car. “Vi vil gjerne ha et rom med bad,” I repeat to myself from time to time. (We would like a room with a bath.)
Til venstra, (to the left) strained the dogs, pulling us to a small side road away from the trucks. Once again we stopped to water our new-found friends. Off we started again. At a small junction, our dogs were called, “Til hoyre!” (to the right). Somehow they didn’t get the point, and our guide jumped off mid-stride, and raced to the front of the team, grabbing a chain, urging them to take the right turn. They slowed mid-turn, seeing an excellent stream in front of them, eagerly wanting a bath and drink. She yelled to Greg, “Don’t let them stop!” (that was in English). With her urging the dogs completed the turn and raced down the road. “Stop them!” So we stopped and looked behind us as the next cart had the same issues on the turn, and with no guide to urge the dogs in good behavior, they had raced directly into the stream. The driver stood on her cart, knee-deep in stream water. “They won’t go on!!”
Finally the guide got those dogs moving forward, and the group of sleds continued down the road.
What a wonderful hour we had, racing, and cajoling our dogs to do the right thing. They were so excited to be out that where they went did not seem to concern them.
When we finally returned to the dog yard, they appeared sad to return, and still yelped and bounced as much as the other dogs, who howled by their houses, because they had not gotten to go. We learned that the other half of the dogs would get to go on the afternoon run. We re-attached our dogs to their houses, made sure they had water, and drove in the van up to the compound.
It was there that we noticed what we had not noticed before, several pens with mother dogs and large litters of little ones. “You can hold one if you would like.” Now that I had experienced the thrill of the ride, and bonded with Willow, I was so excited to hold a miniature one in my arms, no less wriggly. I was so very sad to let him go.
We removed our snowmobile suits, and were happy to be fed tea and biscuits.
The next day, as we were out and about on our ATV adventure, we saw a Dog Cart tour pass us. It was a large cart, with several older people aboard, being sedately driven by a guide. It looked so utterly boring compared with our adventures. Be sure if you go, go with Green Dog, and tell Willow I think of her.
Diabetic Travel Tips
Dog Carting can be tiring activity. It is on the level, no climbing up hills or exhausting hiking, however for the most part you are a participant in all the activity. Like a child, a dog is no respecter of the blood glucose condition of the adult, or human. I brought along several juice packs and watered myself as I watered the dogs, making sure I tended to them first. But by hydrating and energizing myself, I had no insulin reactions and was able to enjoy the entire morning.
