Wk 10 Boom!
Location: 68º34'N 23º20'E
Palojärvi, Sápmi, Finland
Weather Conditions: Cloudy with flurries, 20°F (-7°C)
Aaron and Wendy, Teacher Explorer 2008, have arrived! The Polar Huskies were also boogying and passed through the expedition destination (according to the official expedition route)! There is lots of action! On the hillside there are big white snow hares jumping around, and standing out bright orange against the white snow, the red foxes are crossing paths with the Polar Huskies. It's the first time we have ever encountered red foxes - not Arctic foxes - in the high Arctic. Also, white ptarmigan flutter up from the snow! A magpie screeches! Trumpeter swans whoosh above migrating north for their breeding grounds! | ||||||||||||
 | This week more than once we wishfully thought of the piles of bird books at Märta's place in Sweden. We used them when looking out the kitchen window watching the birds of winter and talking about the birds of Spring to come. Well, they are coming! And we admit, it includes quite a few birds we have never seen before. One is a little black bird and when we see it in the distance they seem to be about as big as Mille's hand, with some white somewhere on its body. We can't tell exactly where on its body because it flies rather erratically and very fast directly above the river we have traveled on much of this week. Sometimes it even looks like it dives underneath the ice for a split moment to resurface and continue with the flow of the river. Do you have any ideas what bird this might be? Send-us-Note or Post it to the 04: Climate zone! ... Along with your local phenology observations! Have you seen any funky birds moving in your neighborhood or sign of seasons changing? | |||||||||||
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| When we had said our goodbyes to our kind hosts, Cristel and Sven at the Engholm Husky Kennel, the Polar Huskies went flying down the hillside from their beautiful home in the woods and onto the river below. The trail started out great, but it soon turned more troublesome hugging the shore line and weaving in and out of holes in the ice and fast-flowing open water. The holes grew dangerously bigger and soon we had to stop. | |||||||||||
Snowmobiles are heavy machines, and when they travel on the same trail on a river or a lake throughout a winter the compression on the ice 'thickens it.' With the ice gone and the water wide open on each side of it, we came to a point where the trail was the only thing forming a bridge for us to pass on. But first of all, one should never trust the strength of such 'ice bridges;' secondly it was barely wide enough for the sleds to make it across and was slanting towards the fast-flowing water lapping at its edges on each side; and last, it was at a dip in the trail. This meant the sled would have to be steered directly onto the bridge with no margin for error. This meant that the sled crashing down might simply be more than what the strength of the ice bridge could handle. Paul first stood at the edge of the bridge poking hard into the ice with a ski to listen for the sound of the ice. It did not sound hollow to his trained 'ice-checking' ear. Mille ventured out onto the bridge jumping on it to test its strength, yet hurrying across. Then with Paul on the backend steering, and Mille out front calling, yipping and running ahead we took one team across at a time. The sleds did hit down on the ice bridge with a hard boom as we had feared, but the ice held strong. "Any time we are forced to opt for dogsledding on such 'ledge ice,' it makes me very nervous. But the ice was so rotten in this spot from shore to shore of the river, and in my judgment it was no safer to try get to the shore, so our best option was to turn around," says Paul. "It was a dangerous situation no doubt." |
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All times of the year one has to be watchful journeying on the ice of a river with fast-flowing water. And while it is always tense to run on a trail like this, warm weather begins the opening of the river which means for a great deal of excitement. We also saw lots of tracks! Lynx, lemming, foxes, ptarmigan, snow hares, and Mille even believe she saw the rare tracks of a wolverine! | ||||||||||||
 | When we arrived at Sven's last Saturday night the winds had really started howling down the river. We didn't take much notice of it though as we headed up the steep inclines and into the protection of the trees in the forest around the Engholm Husky Kennels. However, when we returned back down to the river, edging our way north into an area of short branchy birch trees, we were soon reminded of the wind as the trail vanished from the drifting snow. The drifts made for some hard hard dogsledding as the Polar Huskies were plowing the sleds through deep snow. Disko and Freja took turns breaking trail leading the front team while the high winds whisked away the trail behind us in just minutes. | |||||||||||
We have definitely gotten spoiled on this expedition. Nowhere else in the Arctic have we ever traveled on 'a trail system.' Sitting at Mathias and Wilma's kitchen table in Ivalo, Finland, we finally settled on a plan for how and where to meet up with Aaron and Wendy. It was with this trail system in mind (and looking out the window at the rain!) that we decided to push the expedition pass its official destination: the community of Kautokeino. However, while we believe even Disko had it figured out to look for the red wooden crosses marking the trail in Finland, in Norway it was an entirely different story. Far fewer people out on the land touring by snowmobile made for less traveled trails; and with no markings of which trails headed where, we basically couldn't be sure if the trails we did come across would eventually 'end the right place' - or if they were trails of reindeer herders heading out onto the land for their reindeer. |
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| The disappearing trail combined with the fact that we had set the goal to cover a a long distance in short time since leaving Ivalo, made for a week of some long days getting up at dawn and not back in the tent until late evening some 16-17 hours later. We didn't even stop in the community of Kautokeino late Thursday night! We were pushing as hard as we possibly could to get pass the border of Norway taking us back into Finland. We needed to meet our next goals of leaving Norway within seven days (or we would have to go through another veterinary inspection); meeting up with Aaron and Wendy; and then continuing into the mountains in Sweden! | |||||||||||
As much hassle as we had last week in crossing from Sweden to Finland, the crossing from Norway into Finland went so smooth and easy we were shaking our heads in disbelief with grins on our faces. The border guard even called ahead to the next community of Palojärvi to set us up with a nice cabin and letting them know if they could please stay open past closing time. The Polar Huskies still had to travel across a few more lakes and many birch trees to wrap up yet another 13+ hour day of running. "I was hoping for a large herd of reindeer or anything really, as long as it would excite the Polar Huskies to get the job done," says Paul. But no such luck. While we had met plenty of reindeer earlier in the day, and one herd being so large that we had to stop for what seemed a very long hour to wait for the reindeer herders to bring them all on one side of the mountain for us to pass through, there was nothing but a few passing cars to excite the crew for the last miles. However, the Polar Husky experience kicked in. Mille urged the front team on with a soft command, "town, town-town, town," and the veterans of the team, Sable and Co., lead the way continuing to pull in a steady pace. They knew it meant 'please keep it up, day off tomorrow, and extra treat ahead!' |
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| At the same time Wendy and Aaron on the other hand saw lots of reindeer riding in style in the leather interior of a Volvo car! "I think reindeer are the most beautiful animal there is..." said the cab driver Batti as he brought the cab to a stop to let a group of reindeer pass over the road. A Sámi reindeer herder from Kaaresuvanto in Sweden, Batti had agreed to drive Aaron and Wendy the last 60-mile leg of their journey to meet the Polar Huskies and join the expedition from the Swedish/Finnish border town of Kaaresuanto to the community of Palojärvi. Wendy and Aaron had globe-trotted for more than 20 hours the day before to overnight in Kaaresuanto and await word on their final destination! | |||||||||||
 | Their 'globe-trotting' so far had been somewhat of a close-call-journey. Aaron's flight from Minneapolis was held outside the gate so that he barely made the connecting flight in Chicago! The two explorers got on a wrong train heading for downtown Stockholm! (but a local caught the frenzy letting Aaron and Wendy know to get off the bus "now!!"); and once in Kiruna, Sweden they made the bus to Kaaresuando, their final destination for the day, by one minute! Stepping out of the small airport in Kiruna, Aaron saw a woman holding up a sign with his name. It was the cab driver Paul had set up ahead of time since there are not a lot of cabs in Kiruna. "We have to hurry," she said, "the bus leaves in 15 minutes..." Aaron asked her how long it would take to get to the bus station and she replied, "15 minutes, but I promise I will get you there!" She sure did make it happen! She parked the cab in front of the bus so that it couldn't leave stating, "You are in Sweden. Everyone is on time!" | |||||||||||
Speaking of being on time. Join this week's chat this Thursday, April 17 at 2 PM CST to talk with Katie Scheidt from former Vice President Al Gore's "The Climate Project." She will talk about the timely topic of climate chaos as we head up into the mountains to hopefully talk with reindeer herders about their experiences with climate change on the land. |
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We know who will be the first to spot any reindeer! Always looking for excitement and always on the hunt -sniffing every track she comes by and constantly looking for animals (and the one to spot the snow hares that made it look like the hill was moving) - is this week's Polar Husky Superstar: Lightning. She is extremely intelligent. Just on her third large expedition, Lightning is new to the many demands of a lead dog. But, taking commands and figuring out the ins and outs of leading a team of Polar Huskies, the leadership comes very natural to her. She is sweet natured and loves to please. Head up and ears perked, Lightning is almost always paying attention when she is running. She is looking for excitement and is alert to any sound or any movement. The team might be strolling along at a slow trot when Lightning sees something, be it the reflection of a moving car in the vast distance or a bird in the sky, and 'boom!' the team will be boogying down the trail. This week we are moving into the mountains of Sápmi and Lightnight will lead us! |
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