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Day 7 – Dog sledging with dogs that went to the North Pole

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18.03.2015
I believe everyone of us has seen those advertisements of an ideal holiday and vacation places with sea, palms and sandy beaches, hot weather and lazy mornings. Well, you may not believe me, but those ads are lying. The ideal place to spend your vacations is covered with snow and ice, it has no trees (definitely – no palms) and no sandy seaside for getting suntan, but don’t worry, you can get some frostbite instead… You cannot go easily where you want, as the polar bears, the kings of Arctic, may become interested in you, which may result in rising up your adrenaline levels…
Let’s call this place Svalbard!

I am one of those lucky people, who are there in Svalbard for the sixth day already, engaging in many types of activities this wonderful place has to offer. Today we will experience dog sledging, visit an ice cave and have a special dinner in a local restaurant. I am really looking forward for it all!

Morning

Morning

But let’s follow the natural order of things and start the day with a daily running!
So, we woke up at about 7 o’clock and went out running our daily 5K. The weather was nice, about -13C degrees, almost no wind, no snowing. (Would you believe anyone in Latvia, who’d told you, that it is -13C and nice weather? I wouldn’t!)

After the run we got breakfast. I overate as usually. We had some chat with some “guesthouse friends” which we’ve already made there, and we were ready to go for our today’s adventures!

Our today’s guides Tommy and Laura picked us up nearby the guesthouse and took us to the Tommy’s house, where we got on some warmer clothes, snow costumes and mittens with ropes (for not losing one), like in my childhood! I have to admit that Tommy’s house looked kind of wonderful (and I am not telling this just because there is “huskies’ farm” right nearby). The house is some kilometers away from the city, it is located in beautiful place with nice view around. It has many cosy wooden furniture items, which looked really nice. The bookshelves were pretty eye-catchy for me, as they were full with adventure literature about Arctic, North, huskies, expeditions etc. The house is like North version of eco-house. But it is a different story already.

Let me say at least few more words about Tommy himself, as it turned out that we were lucky to go dog sledging with a legendary person and his very special dogs. Tommy has not only ridden through Alaska with huskies, but also has reached the North Pole. His kids continue his hobby as well and have already great success in junior competitions.

The dogs are preparing for a trip

The dogs are preparing for a trip

Well, back to our story. So, after getting on some warm clothes, we met the wonderful dogs, which would take us to an inspiring journey through the white Arctic scenery. We helped Tommy and his assistant Laura to attach the dogs to the sledges. The dogs were really friendly, but each with a different character.

We made four teams and started to ride. Shortly after the start our (my and Edgar’s) team decided that we have to keep the tradition of falling over, so it is better to do it in the very beginning to take pressure off of our further journey. The plan went out well, so the remaining 99% of our trip we were going just fine.

The white wonderland

The white wonderland

We sledged through the white, beautiful hilly valleys, observing the greatness of Arctic nature and appreciating the stamina and strength of the dogs. Sledging with dogs were completely different of snowmobiles and hiking, as it has such a peace and strength of nature in it, making it kind of meditative process. Of course, it didn’t keep my fingers from freezing and my mind from thinking of falling out of the sledge. Still, I really enjoyed the ride.

What’s interesting, you can see the dogs’ characters even when riding. One of our team’s dogs was a bit like a bully, trying to bite leash or a back of the other dog running next to him. The other one was so strong that it looked like he could pull our sledge just by himself.

Riding further the teams switched, so me and Edgars got together on team with Tommy. I got to stand behind and push on uphills. That is the part, where you get your fingers really warm again. While riding, Tommy told me about the dogs, their characters and strength.

We made a pause nearby the ice cave, which is formed in frozen river. It was such a calm, quiet and peaceful place down there, with sparkling icicles and ice layers, which reveal some mysteries of the past years.
After crawling out of this sparkling adventure we had lunch sitting all together in a plateau, watching dogs and hills all around us and listening to Tommy’s stories.

On the way back I and Edgars were on a team with Laura. There were many descents, so Edgars and Laura got to operate the break, while I was sitting in the sledge and calculating possibilities of falling over. It was such luck we’ve ready completed this task earlier today. So the way back was just great.

Going down through the valleys, watching rhythmical dog movement in front of us and snowy peaks all around the trail, the time flew by, and soon we already approached the Tommy’s home again.
We helped getting the dogs in their places. It looked like they were in a great mood after the ride. After we got out of our snow costumes, we hurried back to the town, as we still had great plans for this evening.

The majority of our team had to quickly change the place they were staying at (as the eclipse time is very busy for the Longyearbyen’s hotels and guest houses). I was lucky enough to stay all my days there in one guest house, which felt like home already.
Still, I had to hurry to get to the fancy restaurant in the city centre in time. I put on my best (and only) big white handmade woolen jumper (thanks, Mom!) and my prettiest (and only) snow pants, and matching earrings (of course!), and I was ready for the beautiful evening.

Dinner in a posh place

Dinner in a posh place


The restaurant were located some kilometers from our guest house, which could take us about half an hour, but it took us much more, as we met all together on our way there and decided to get lost a bit. Who could imagine that right after those industrial hangars there is a romantic block with a beautiful restaurant and guest house? We were happy to finally get in a warm place, furthermore, it looked really cosy and fancy at the same time. Unfortunately we discovered that the eclipse time has brought different prices to this place, not the ones we were expecting, but I believe it happened to many places there. As some of us were already starving (and as we all know, we can’t be choosy and picky in a survival situations), we decided to stay. And it was worth it, as from my side I can assure you that the vegetarian dish was really delicious. The non-vegetarians decided to have seal and whale stakes, whose taste will remain a mystery to me. We had some nice chat, and Juris gave us a wonderful speech. We concluded the evening with Anders’s story about adventures of the previous day, which were our tradition before I broke it a day later.

On a way back some of us enjoyed winter fun by sledging up and down the hilly road home. Nice surrounding, good company, physical activities and a touch of wine works really well for having great time! :)

I fell asleep immediately after getting under the blanket and dreamt about our next day in a white wonderland.

Day 6 – A Beer in Barentsburg

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17.03.2015
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I don’t know who said it, and he or she was probably paid by some producer of breakfast cereal, but I think it’s true. This morning the restaurant was more or less packed with people. With more and more tourists arriving for the eclipse this is to be expected, and when the weather promises to be excellent for outdoor activities everyone wants to get going early.

Today we were going to Barentsburg on snowmobiles. With a temperature of -13, clear skies and light winds, the conditions were ideal. The sun was shining on the mountaintops. We set off over Longyearbreen where we were walking three days ago, coming down from Sarkofagen. Our guide, Tobbe, lead the way and everybody followed in line. Today’s route was a little more technical than the one to Tempelfjorden. Both driver and passenger would have to use their bodyweight somewhat to steady the vehicle when going perpendicular to the slope.

After a lovely drive of maybe two hours through U-shaped valleys and over glaciers and frozen rivers, we cruised into the Russian town of Barentsburg. In large parts owned by a Russian state-run mining company, this is the main Russian settlement in Svalbard. We parked right next to the new brewery and I thought it might be a good idea to test this local brew. Me, Rūdolfs and Alīna went to the bar while the others waited in the hallway. They had three kinds of beer, Belgian blonde, amber and dark. For 15 NOK I bought a 33 cl glass of blonde and we all shared this and also got some small samples of the other kinds of beer. They were all only 2,5% alcohol. For light beers they were quite allright!

Next, we took a walk around the town, our guide pointing out different buildings. Some were from the soviet era, some were newer, all looked completely different from the ones in Longyearbyen. The school was painted with pictures of animals, buildings and historical figures. There was a sculpture of Lenin in a park and behind it a big sign that read “Our aim is communism”.

On the way back we stopped for lunch beside a pingo mostly covered in snow and ice. There was a small hut built on top of it. Pingos consists of ice covered in earth and can form when there is a steady supply of groundwater that may freeze and lift the above earth layer. I was happy to have the opportunity to climb it and have a walk around on top of it.

For the last part back to Longyearbyen we took a different route through some narrow passages. At one point you really had to shift your weight to one side while going up an incline. Unfortunately, Edgars and Alina weren’t able to counter the sideways slope and rolled over. Both escaped this incident without injuries though.

Safely back in Nybyen (the furthest part of the Longyearbyen town where our guesthouse was), Juris and Agnese rushed away to a free lecture about the sun and the northern lights held at the university. When they came back they had brought two kicksleds. Apparently they were provided by the city and free to use by anybody. Juris an Kristine were soon out on the nearby road, trying one of them out. Me and Rudolf joined them in just a while. I had a few downhill races against both Juris an Rudolf and in my opinion I was clearly the winner. Except maybe one time when I forgot to shift my bodyweight and rolled over!

Day 2 – The arrival day

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Those 7 of us who came to Oslo last night spent it in the Gardemoen airport which is claimed to be one of the top 10 European airports for sleeping. There were several options ranging from the floor to nice-looking cushioned stools in one of the cafes. However, the cafe area appeared rather busy and it would take long time to wait till everyone has left. So we went for some shorter space along 3 seats in a row of chairs on the 2nd floor for 3 of us, and a quiet corner on floor for the other 4. I opted for the chairs and spent a very peaceful and not at all uncomfortable night,

On the other side of security control it turned out that Longyerbyen flights are on the international schedule rather than the domestic. I believe that might be because Svalbard is not part of Schengen zone while Norway itself is.
We met Anders at the gate. Some (unsuccessful) attempts to fix the map on the homepage and I had to leave the internet behind. That’s not too bad as we were supposed to have wifi when airborne! We are flying Norwegian airlines after all, and they have free wifi on board. Except that the wifi experience this time was not the best. It took a long time to open google, and it was impossible to open gmail. Some Norwegian newspaper webpages worked better, however. So no success with the map again.

We landed a couple of hours later in a snowy place next to a body of water, Longyearbyen. The mountains are not comparable to Alps, but so close to the sea they are still impressive. To get a better first impression 5 of us had decided to walk from the airport to the guesthouse. The others would go by bus (75 NOK) and take all the suitcases and large backpacks with them. The walk to the town centre is 4.5km, and to our guesthouse it’s 7km in total, so not impossible at all. Technically there’s a risk of polar bears between the airport and the boundary of the city (first 3km), but the risk of being hit by a car is in fact greater, so we didn’t worry about that much.

Polar bear sign

Polar bear sign

Jeans were perhaps not the best piece of clothing to wear for the walk as we had a head-wind and we were longing for some skiing-trousers which had gone along with the suitcases by the bus. On the positive side, we saw some reindeer and enjoyed the walk in other ways. We were not the first ones to reach the “Polar bears around” road sign, so our sticker was only about the 10th on that road-sign pole. But we have now marked our presence :)

We are living in 2 guesthouses which are located next to each other. Ours was said to have one public pc with internet connection. That sounded as a great potential for wifi to me, so I had taken a router with me to try to set it up. In the real life there had been some improvements and there were wifi routers in our building. Unfortunately having a router and having a wifi are two different things, as it wasn’t working. After some educational exploring we attached the power cable from my router to theirs and got the wifi signal. Later on when talking to the receptionist, we found out that this access point has been the previous wifi they have had and now they have a new system to connect to if we want internet. With one bar signal strength out of five in our building on good times that was not really usable, however, and the fact that they are supposedly working on improvements didn’t help either. So we were happy to use their old one without them noticing.

The guesthouses are nice. Both of them are very clean and warm. There’s a kitchen with all the pots, pans, plates and cutlery, a fridge, an oven and a stove and even a dishwasher. Thus we have a very good setup to prepare our own food which we have brought with us from Riga. However, just before the dinner there’s some fun going on outside – a snowmobile jumping show was a part of a restaurant opening celebration and our kitchen windows were perfectly positioned to see it. We went outside for a closer look and got a welcome drink on the house in the new restaurant.

This had been a long day, so after some cozy chatting around dinner table we went to sleep to be ready for a hiking trip on the following day.