 A Siberian husky curled up at Finn-Jann
In my work as a tour guide, I often have huskies as helpers and colleagues. During the snowshoe trekking day-trips they pull me up and down the hills, and in the long-distance trips I guide, they help the whole group by pulling our sleeping bags, food, and spare socks in sledges while we snow-shoe or ski.
The dogs live in the small village of Jurmu on Kuusamo road between Pudasjärvi and Taivalkoski, in the middle of a forest. You know you’re approaching it because you start to hear howling–the noise of a hundred canines. During the main season for husky sled rides, sledges leave Jurmu every day.
Guides have plenty to do. The dogs have to be put into harnesses and fixed to the tow line. At this stage the sledge is attached to something stable with a rope, otherwise the dogs would just start to run. No husky feels like waiting until the last of the team is in its position. They hop up and down, pull as fast as they can, bark, and howl.
When everything is as it should be, the clients take their places on the sledge, and the guide loosens the rope. The dogs jump forward, pulling with all their strength, and the sledge glides forward. At this point the dogs are silent and satisfied, with a mind only for running.
It’s an awesome sight, and I stand a while watching them disappear into the forest. A sled ride is real fun, not only for the speed but the interplay between you and the dogs. It’s also a perfect way to enjoy Northern Finland’s desolate landscape.
Today I won’t be on a sledge ride: I’m here to interview and have tea with farm owner Timo Jokela in the cosy service room. ‘This place was an agricultural farm in earlier days,’ he remembers. ‘We had some cattle and lived quite a traditional life for the area.’
Contrary to what you might assume, sledge dogs are a new phenomenon for Fennoscandia. In earlier days, when remote areas had no roads and the snow scooter hadn’t been invented, reindeer transported goods for trade through the vast woods and marshes during winter.
 It was only in the second half of the 20th Century that locals became interested in husky sledding as a hobby or means of living. These days, husky ‘safaris’ are very popular and there are a lot of husky farms in Finland, Sweden, and Norway.
Not that the use of dog sledges for transporting goods and people doesn’t have a much longer history elsewhere. In Siberia, Greenland, Canada, and the US, dogs had a vital role in sparsely inhabited areas, making it possible to survive in extremely cold, harsh Arctic environment. In Alaska and Canada, dogs played an important role during the first big gold rushes.
It was the ‘Great Race of Mercy’ in 1925 however that really made sled dogs famous.
When a diphtheria outbreak hit Nome, a remote Alaskan town, the primitive air transport of the time couldn’t transport medicine through -40 °C and driving winds. To rescue Nome and the surrounding communities from an epidemic, 20 mushers and more than 100 sled dogs moved the diphtheria antitoxin over 1000 km in a record-breaking five and a half days, through almost impassable terrain, under extreme weather conditions.
The term sled dog is very broad. It covers a variety of dogs with differing characteristics. There are Greenland, Samoyed, Alaskan Malamute and Siberian huskies; huskies from Kamchatka in Siberia with thick fur, that can withstand temperatures of down to -50°C. The biggest and strongest are Malamutes and Greenlandians.
Alaskan huskies are very common. Originally village dogs used by North American Indians, nowadays they are mixed with pointers and setters and greyhounds, whatever is strong and fast. Some Alaskan huskies look like the stereotype, with thick fur and brown-black colours. Others resemble other breeds more closely, with thin fur, unable to sleep in the snow when temperatures sink much below zero.
Cross-breeding strengthens specific characteristics, like the ability to run faster in competitions, or do hard physical work in relatively warm conditions, that is higher than -10°C. Cross-breeds are mainly for sled dog racing over shorter distances. Over long distance races of over 100 km a day, traditional Alaskan and Siberian huskies are still unbeatable.
Many people believe that all huskies have blue eyes. In reality they have everything from blue to brown, amber or even green. Huskies are invariably sociable dogs – they have to work in a team. They’re also very enthusiastic to run and work hard. And they need a temper that can be handled by the musher. They can’t be aggressive to other dogs or people, like guard dogs.
At Finn-Jann husky farm the 100 dogs are part Siberian, part Alaskan husky.
‘My first was a Siberian–it was the start of everything,’ declares Timo. When the family’s old hunting dog died, he started to search for a new dog. By chance, he found a newspaper ad selling a ‘friendly dog with a wolf-like appearance.’ The new dog led to an interest in the breed. Timo met other husky breeders and eventually helped out at a farm in Ivalo.
At Ivalo Timo met a tourist operator from Switzerland who was interested in sending his clients to Timo’s farm. ‘This is how it started: in the beginning, in 1993, there were only 20 huskies at Finn Jann. Guests were accommodated directly in the farm and it was work from early morning until late at night.’ He was fond of the work, however, and it was more profitable than cow farming.
After a difficult start, the farm started to grow. Nowadays Finn-Jann offers a broad variety of programmes from short safaris to an entire week of husky sled trips, staying in cabins in the middle of the forest.
Is it possible to know the names of a hundred dogs, I wonder.
‘Without a problem,’ Timo answers with a smile. The dogs were born here at the farm and I’ve been raising them, training them, and working with them all their lives. The usual life span of these dogs is from eleven to fifteen years. In that time, you really get to know them.’
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