Big Cold in the New Year

Already 9 days old is the New Year, but still also from our side a Happy New Year to all of you! We hope you could celebrate and enjoy the last evening of 2020 and start nicely into 2021. Despite forbidden big crowds and fireworks, you hopefully still had a good start into the new year. We here had a relaxed evening in the Kota with sausages from open fire, potatoe-salad as well as cheese and vegetables to fill the stomach nicely before midnight. With about 3 minutes delay (we simply talked too much) we then startet 2021 as well with a glass of champagne. Yes, really different than all the New Years Eve's before, but still nice to have also once in a while. 

During the last days we had a few day-trips with visitors here, as well as a Finnish family who spent 4 days with us. And that's how January will continue: some short-stay-visits, day-trips, some companies and associations who organize a visit here, and.... tadaaa... the planning says, that the first Bears-Trail starts on 23rd January with a group of 6. Cross fingers that everything runs as planned!

Since last night we have a well-known cold-wave here, it comes almost every January. Within a few hours the temperatures dropped from -6 to 8 down to -26C this morning. On the sled if feels like -30 and colder, depending on the speed of the dog-team or if the trail is on open ice or in the forests. But still, today every dog in the New Kennels gets a run. The first team startet out in the morning at 08h15, the last 4 teams are out now. Normally our clients are runnign all the dogs, but caused by guest-free weeks we still have to train all our dogs ourselves and keep them active and happy. 

After this cold-wave we look very much forward to get more snow, as it is predicted. We are keen on opening more trails. Can't wait to run the dogs on the big loops like "Zimmerman-Trail", or the Russian Swamps, also the Änäkäinen-Loop will be a lot of fun soon! It will be a bit more tricky to run all dogs from one kennel side in one day then. Because when one loop of 30 - 35 km is done, the daylight is soon over. And as there are a few "normal" works to be done every day, besides training/training/training, we will run out of time. Happy about every single customer who comes and helps us running the dogs! 

It took a while, but now finally all our new summer-programs 2021 are published online! Also the first bookings are placed already! This shows us, that many of you are eager to travel again, after this long period of travel restrictions. And this gives hope, that tourism can get back to almost normal in very short time, as soon as the politics and health authorities give green light. Perfectly fine for us, if that green light is given very quickly! 

There was a huge wave of support that reached us after we started our GoFundMe-Campaign. It's hard or even impossible to express in words what you all have done, to support our dog-pack and make sure they get the used high quality food and veterinarian care whenever needed until at least mid-year 2021. All the cash-donations, the new sponsorships for one of our dogs, also specific donations of food for the dogs, it all goes straight to the dogs and every single one of our 129 dogs plus all humans here can simply just say THANK YOU!