Key takeaways
- It is an odd starting point for an Arctic activity and it has the advantage of being impossible to miss.
- A black minivan takes the group to the husky base and returns it to the same place.
- Briefing, harnessing and the animals take up as much of the two hours as the five kilometres do.
- A heated shelter, a hot drink and cookies, which after an hour outside is worth more than it sounds.
Finding the start
The tour meets in the car park in front of the Burger King in Levi. There is one, it is in the village, and a black minivan waits there for the group. Nothing about this is glamorous and all of it is easy to find, which on a dark February afternoon is worth more than atmosphere.
Arrive a few minutes early. A group has to gather, names have to be checked and a two-hour booking has no spare capacity for someone who is fifteen minutes late. If you are staying in Levi you can walk; if you have driven, you park where you are meeting.
Dress before you arrive rather than planning to change. There is no facility at the car park, and the transfer is short.
The drive out
It takes about ten minutes. The van leaves the village, the buildings stop almost immediately, and the road narrows into forest. This is a short piece of the tour and it does something useful: it puts distance between you and the resort, so that when you arrive at the base the village feels a long way off even though it is not.
In midwinter this drive happens in twilight or dark, and the forest either side of the road is genuinely black. In March it happens in daylight and you can see the country you are going into.
The same van brings you back at the end, to the same car park.
Arriving at the base, and the briefing
The first thing anyone notices is the noise. A kennel of working huskies that has seen a van arrive is not quiet, and the sound is not distress: it is dogs that want to run and have worked out that running is about to happen. It stops the moment the teams are moving.
The briefing is short and covers what actually matters: the brake, which is a foot bar you stand on; the snow hook, which anchors a stationary sled; how to lean into a bend rather than fighting it; and the one rule everybody is told twice, which is never let go of the sled.
Teams are then harnessed. This takes longer than visitors expect and is worth watching rather than waiting through, because it is the part of the operation where you can see how the dogs are handled and how much of it is routine to them.
The kennel yard on arrival, before the teams are hooked up
The five kilometres
Two people share a sled: one stands on the runners and drives, one sits in the basket. Halfway round you swap, so both drive and both ride. The guide runs alongside or ahead for the whole distance.
The first few hundred metres are the busiest. The dogs start fast because they are keen, the sled feels unstable because you have never stood on one, and the brake is doing more work than it will for the rest of the run. Then the team settles into a working trot, the sled stops feeling like it might get away from you, and the whole thing goes quiet.
The trail runs through pine forest and out onto Rautusjarvi, a frozen lake. Five kilometres at that pace is not long, and almost everybody says afterwards that they would have taken more.
The dogs, the puppies and the reindeer
After the run there is time with the animals rather than an immediate return to the van, and this is a larger part of the tour than most descriptions suggest. The team you drove is unhooked and you can go and thank them, which they receive with the enthusiasm of dogs who have just done the thing they exist to do.
There is a litter of four-month-old puppies. If you are travelling with children, be prepared for this to be the part they talk about for the rest of the trip.
And there is a reindeer area beside the kennel, with the chance to see and feed them. Two animal encounters inside one two-hour booking is unusual, and neither of them is charged as an extra.
The shelter, and warming up
A heated shelter with hot drinks and cookies closes the outdoor part. After an hour standing still in Arctic air this is not a courtesy, it is the point at which your hands come back.
It also does something for the group. People who have just driven a dog sled for the first time have a good deal to say about it, and a warm room with a hot drink is where that happens.
Give it the time it is worth. The clock on the tour is generous enough for it.
How the two hours divide, roughly
Ten minutes out, ten minutes back, so twenty in the van. Fifteen to twenty on arrival, briefing and harnessing. The run itself, at a working team pace over five kilometres. Then the remainder with the dogs, the puppies, the reindeer and the shelter.
The arithmetic matters because expectations get set by the phrase five kilometres, and a visitor who has pictured two hours of sledding will be disappointed by a tour that is honestly described everywhere as two hours in total.
Read the other way round, the same arithmetic is the tour’s argument. A short run you drive yourself, plus real time with the animals, inside a booking that leaves the rest of your day intact.
Two hours, and you drive the middle of it yourself
Check datesBefore you book
Where exactly does it meet?
What if I am late?
How long is the transfer?
How much of the two hours is on the sled?
Do both people get to drive?
What is served at the end?
Is there anywhere to change?
What time do I get back?
The two hours, in order
Meet at the car park
In front of the Burger King in Levi, where a black minivan waits. Arrive a few minutes early and dressed for outside.
Ten minutes out by van
Out of the village and into forest, on a road that narrows as it goes.
Briefing and harnessing
The brake, the snow hook, leaning into bends, and never letting go of the sled. Then the teams are hooked up.
Five kilometres on the runners
Two people to a sled, swapping halfway, with the guide alongside the whole way.
Dogs, puppies and reindeer
Time with the team you drove, a four-month-old litter, and the reindeer area beside the kennel.
Warm shelter, then back
A hot drink and cookies indoors, and the same van back to the same car park.
