I had a team of sledge dogs in Uummannaq. The short story is we were never meant to have dogs. I mean, I wanted dogs, but we we’re not supposed to have any. Then a friend told us about a hunter friend of theirs who was leaving the island to take a job and was looking for someone to look after his dogs over the winter.
Well, we walked right into that one.
He never returned.
Suddenly we had dogs, of all ages, not trained.
This was tricky, and a humongous learning curve. I grasped at tips and tricks in conversation, but really I hit the books. Believe it or not, I learned a tonne from books about Amundsen and the South Pole. And there I was, at the other end world, reading chapters between sewing harnesses and getting dressed to go and feed the dogs in minus 25 Celsius.
There’s a lot more to this story – me and the dogs, Jane and the dogs, and a lot more photos, even some video – but this blog is about walking the dogs – one or two in particular – and how it was so European, and ultimately weird and sometimes frowned upon by the locals. But the mountain was my backyard and so long as I didn’t bother anyone, it was no problem.
It was also a tonne of fun!
Nansen was my regular walking mate, and we spent a lot of time on Uummannaq mountain.
You’ll see him again. A very photogenic fella, and a good companion.
Oh, and if you’re wondering about the light. Uummannaq is way south of Qaanaaq, so even though at this point in November the sun had gone for the year, there was a period of twilight for about 90 minutes each day, getting darker as we got closer and closer to Christmas – the turning point in the winter dark.
Chris
so good to hear about the dogs, would love to hear more about how you trained them. I have read a few of the books about the polar explorers – Shackleton ( South) and Mawson, Antarctic, mostly but others also from the Arctic – stories of Franklin and the search for the north west passage. Then there is the recent uncovering of that mystery by Michael Palin. There is also recent book about the reality of day to day life of survival of the Endurance team by Joanna Grochowicz ‘Shackelton’s Endurance’ and I am just about to start that. Thank you for the lovely images, Nansen is so photogenic – was he also a good sledge dog. I recall Tinka’s antics…..
Miriam
“Training” really boiled down to who was the most stubborn. 🙂 But I’ll talk more about that in later posts. Nansen was my mountain dog. He was too pretty to pull the sledge! Is the Palin book “Erebus”? If so, I have it, but have yet to read it. You may have read some of these Barry Lopez’ “Arctic Dreams” is a classic. Jennifer Niven’s “The Ice Master” is, in my opinion just fabulous. Marie Herbert’s “The Snow People” is a good read but hard to find. It’s a true account from when she, her explorer husband and their daughter lived on Herbert Island, Qaanaaq. There are tonnes more, but I think you’ve already read one of my favourites: Roland Huntford’s “Scott and Amundsen”. 🙂