BIG, HUGE, GIANT DISCLAIMER: We are lazy. This trip was back at the end of 2019, pre-COVID, back when travel was possible and the thought of not easily being able to hop on a plane and go pretty much wherever we wanted was unfathomable. How many other things were unfathomable to us back then? Face masks, social distancing, and who the heck is Dr Fauci? Anyway – enjoy our post for a quick trip down memory lane to the good ol’ pre-COVID days. Let’s hope travel like this becomes possible again soon.
In fact, we have procrastinated so long that we are back in season, so easy to imagine this fun winter adventure. If you want to refresh yourself on the earlier parts of our trip to Finland, you can see those posts here.
With our time in Finland coming to an end, we had one more big activity planned. We would leave Finland and our six months of travel on a high! Before that, however, we actually had some down time in the “big city” of Lapland, Rovaniemei (pop. 63,000).
We decided to visit the Arktikum, which was an excellent museum depicting life and environment of the Arctic. It offered a few hands-on exhibits for the kids and was really interesting for the adults.
Mostly, however, we chose to stroll around the town while the boys had a great time playing in the snow piles. We marvelled at people cycling by in the snow, just getting on with things. Impressive.
And now the highlight…Dog sledding! As we’d been dog sledding before (once in Alaska and once in Iceland, but both in the summer on wheels) we were a little bit hesitant to spend the money to do it again…but we were so glad we did! It was worth every penny and a great way to end our Finland trip.
We were picked up near our Airbnb in a minibus with several other tourists and driven to the dog sledding area about half an hour away. Once there, we suited up. Yup, that’s right! We put on more winter clothes over our winter clothes and boy were we glad we did!
After suiting up we were given a quick briefing on how to control the dogs – here’s the brake, leave a gap between the sled in front of you, be nice to the dogs and don’t yell at them, don’t worry too much about steering as the dogs will know where to go. Done!
Our biggest problem by far was keeping a gap to the sled in front. Our dogs were ready to run! We felt bad doing it but we were pretty much on the brakes the whole time. The dogs ploughed on regardless, occasionally looking back as if to say, ‘darn tourists! Let us run!’
Despite our best efforts, our dogs still managed to overtake the sled in front of us…even though we were on a single track path! Eventually, we settled into a nice rhythm and were able to enjoy the stunning scenery.
About 6km in and at about the halfway point we stopped on the lake to change drivers. There we were able to get some photos before taking off for home as the sun went down. It was a beautiful and relaxing experience.
Once back, we got out of our second layer of winter clothes and were treated to some hot beverages and snacks. Then our bus took us home while the next load of tourists pulled up. An efficient operation this dog sledding.
So that was our last activity in Finland and our favorite. Ending a great week on a high!
The next day, we flew out at 2pm, and got an amazing view of the tiny traces of sunlight that managed to make its way this far north.
[Final COVID-era note: am I the only one who reads this and thinks – we were in a museum – indoors and touching all these things?!?! We took and bus full of strangers and just breathed everyone’s air!?! How footloose and fancy-free we were in those days!!]
Here’s to a better year of travel in 2021, and stay tuned for a few posts on the travel we did manage to squeak in (socially distanced and with masks firmly in place) during 2020.
