When I started planing this trip to Lapland, I was sure I wanted to do one special activity there. For a region where snow covers everything for most part of the year, there are so many things to do there… Cross country ski, snowshoeing, ice fishing… I can do a lot of these things in Switzerland too, so I wanted something special, something very related to Finland. I didn’t consider one of those northern lights tours. They depend on the weather and solar storms, so the chances to do one of those tours and actually seeing the aurora are not very high…

We visited a reindeer farm (you can see the photos here). We could have also gone on a reindeer sled in the farm… and I’m sure I’d had loved it, but the snow was falling heavily that day and it was cold, so sitting in a sled for a long time that day wasn’t very inviting… so what special activity could we do?

Dogs!!! Husky sleds are something very typical from Lapland too. And dogs are one of my favorite things in the world. So we spent our last day in Lapland mushing!!!

The day couldn’t have been better. Sunny and “warm” (considering that we were in Lapland), with a beautiful pastel blue sky. We woke up early and drove to Ivalo. From there, we went to the kennels, where the sleds were being prepared. We spent some time getting to know the dogs before our little trip started. They are beautiful huskies, but different to the huskies you meet in the city. These ones are smaller, stronger, not with the typical grey and white coats, but still gorgeous animals. Before we jumped on our sleds, the atmosphere at the kennel was incredible. Imagine: a hundred dogs barking and howling of pure eagerness. It was crazy!!! After the instructions on how to drive the sleds, we jumped on ours (my husband behind, “driving”, and I at the front, taking photos) and started the trip…

We went through boreal forests and frozen lakes for a long time. It felt more like we were flying in the magnificent Lappish landscape thanks to the tireless huskies. They are awesome animals! We stopped a few times on our route and it was quite funny to see the huskies jumping in the deep snow, eating it and getting eager again after a few minutes of a well deserved break, ready to continue pulling their sleds. After more than two hours, we stopped at a little cute cabin in the forest to have lunch by the fire, the perfect opportunity for me to take some portraits of the dogs and capture them in some of their cutest instants. Afterwards, we returned to the kennels, where we had the chance to play with the new generation of huskies 🙂

By the way, if you’re wondering, we did this mushing safari with Extreme Huskies, based in Ivalo.

Here are some of the photos I took during this amazing day! I hope you like them!!

Friendly Friday Photo Challenge: Posing

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