...Getting it done! That's the Polar Husky motto of the week. The mighty Polar Huskies easily overcame the historic fjell of Saariselka: Magneettimäki, also known as the Magnet Hill. In just three days and one night (!) of running they covered more than 110 miles (180 kilometers) pulling into the first re-supply point of this expedition, the Tanama Husky Kennel, just outside the town of Ivalo late Wednesday night. Charging down steep fjell sides; running through the dark night; running across the Vusto river flowing with open water; and running through narrow highway tunnels, the Polar Huskies simply got it done this week. 

The first tunnel did turn out to be an error though! "A bus, logging trucks and cars rumbling across above us, it was a 'Polar Husky first' to run through a highway tunnel and both Mille and I were quite excited to try it as Disko with no hesitation turned to move the team through," says Paul.  However, the trail narrowed, started zigzagging, and less than a mile later we had to bring the teams to a stop.  We were in front of the information entrance to a 'gold panning camp' buzzing with tourists. Though not on our planned route so to speak, the little detour did serve to make us aware of the fact that while timber and forestry has been the staple of the industrial development in this region, the first gold rush sweeping through the area in the early 1900's is a huge part of the history here. 

There are many stories about 'Magnet Hill'! Within an hour of Aksana joining our team last week, she warned about this fjell side on our route and what she foresaw would make for a challenging entry to the town of Ivalo, the location of our supplies for the next leg of the journey. But, Aksana did not feel charged up this week. Worried of getting seriously sick, she decided to be picked up while we were still at the community of Pokka. Hoping to reach Ivalo by the end of Thursday, we in turn set out late Sunday afternoon planning to dogsled a late night into the dark to make some mileage and make up for possible delays on Magnet Hill. 

The story of 'Magnet Hill' is that the steep fjell side acts like a magnet pulling whatever tries to climb it the opposite direction of upwards. Be it heavily loaded trucks that were squeezed to a halt shortly before they reached the top of the hill on their way to the Arctic Ocean during World War II when this road was the only link for Sweden and Finland to the outside world (in the year of 1940-41 alone, a little more than 521,500 tons of goods were transported involving some 2000 people; many of which unfortunately died because the conditions on this fjell side were so horrible); be it logging trucks loaded with lumber to re-build the country of Finland after the wars; or be it the earliest days of the road in the 1870's when the reindeer carried supplies and mail to the outpost on the river 'Ivalojoki' during the first gold rush. 

Still today, forestry is significant in the region and there are indeed prospectors looking for gold. For those who are not reindeer herders, tourists, just like those at the gold panning camp, are the most significant resource of income and living in this region.  Equally, about 35% of the work force work with reindeer herding and tourism and communities have changed like that of Saariselka right across from Magnet Hill. Not long ago Saariselka had just about 400 people living there, but today is a ski resort with more than 12,500 beds! People come from around the world to ski, to snowmobile, to dogsled, to experience 'Sámi culture,' and... Santa Claus! In British tradition, Santa Claus lives in Finland. We were dogsledding down the trail late afternoon looking for a good camp spot when we were met by a roar of the more than 250 dogs at the Kakslauttanen Husky Farm. The owner, Janni, most kindly invited the team to stay overnight treating the Polar Huskies to huge portions of steaming warm meat and treating us to buns just hot out of the oven. Just one of several such 'husky farms' in the area, every December they have more than 15,000 people come to go on a very brief dogsled ride for a few hundred yards (meters) to meet Santa...and his reindeer of course. 

This is, as we also reported last week, indeed the land of reindeer. And just like the large ski resorts, the more than 350,000 reindeer in this region of Finland and Sápmi leave their mark on the land. It is only recently that the numbers of reindeer have become so plentiful. Unlike Norway and Sweden where it is only for the Sámi to herd reindeer, here in Finland there is no such restriction. The region is separated into 56 reindeer husbandry areas that each has a land area for their herds to graze on. To try to make sure the reindeer husbandry areas stay in balance, each member in a husbandry area is limited to a maximum of 500 reindeer. Now, reindeer herders can 'trade.' Thus, one reindeer herder might make a deal with another that has 800 reindeer, while the other then agrees to have just 300 reindeer. Between 100 and 120 thousand calves are born every year! Of the newborn calves, it is also a law that more than 70% have to be slaughtered that same year. About 2.5 million kilos (more than 5 million lb.) of reindeer meat is produced each year with a value of more than $15 million!  Reindeer meat is very tender and is considered a great delicacy today in most of Fennoscandia. Because the reindeer store their fat in a layer several centimeters thick above the back, in the are known as the 'spoke,' the meat is very lean and it is also very healthy with lots of the selenium, iron and vitamin C! It used to be that the reindeer fed only off the land, eating more than 350 plants, loving mushrooms, and growing fat in the fall by almost only eating lichen during the winter months! Today, most reindeer herders in this region of Finland must also feed their herds hay or even pellets during these months. The hay is grown in southern Finland, transported to here where the reindeer herders drive out with sleds full of hay to their herds for feeding. 

"Reindeer, reindeer," whispered Mille to the team at the end of a looooooong day on Wednesday. "Straight ahead!" Disko, Nazca, Beacon, Kodiak, and the ears of the entire team perked up while they stood completely still staring down the hill. At the bottom, two reindeer herders had just pulled up to feed their reindeer hay. "We had been climbing up and down, up and down slopes and steep hill sides all day and I could feel it in my legs knowing full well that the Polar Huskies could to," says Mille. A few of the slopes were so steep that we tied the big 'chain brakes,' which are loops of chain that are wrapped around the runner (the ski) of the sled to slow down the glide of the sled, while releasing two or more dogs out of the team to run behind the sled and even letting the rest of the team just pull by their necklines! 

What we did not know was that at the bottom of that very hill, Mathias and his friend Henry, were also standing waiting to guide us.  They guided us to make a sharp 90-degree left turn to then climb one more long uphill to get to the Tanama Husky Kennel. We were thrilled!!! 

Mathias Herling, and his wife Wilma Bontkes, have been an incredible resource of help and support to the GoNorth! Fennoscandia 2008 expedition. From the very beginning when we were in need of the basic maps, to offering up their home as our first re-supply point on the expedition, they have always been there. While Wilma is from Holland, Mathias is from Germany (actually from what was earlier known as East Germany) and he has shared some truly incredible stories with us making for lots of laughs and admiration. For one, Mathias has shared memories of a childhood in a communist country, which can be hard to imagine for the rest of us who have lived in countries with no limited supply of goods and resources. Mathias shared how they enjoyed a banana every couple of Christmas' and how it was a huge deal when there would be melons at the store in the summer time. To get a washing machine, one would make the order and about two years later, it would arrive. For a car, it was 13 years! Yes, really, one would order a car out of a little pamphlet, maybe with four different cars in it, and it would be available for you to pay cash for 13 years later. As Mathias explained it, there was really nothing to it. That's just the way it was and one planned accordingly! "That is so incredibly different from how I grew up," says Mille. "Even though Mathias and I are about the same age and actually did not grow up that far apart, we just lived in two such different worlds as far as resources." 

On that note, make sure to join this week's chat on the topic of World Resources with our expert speaker, The Green Guardian, on Tuesday, April 1 at 1 PM CST. Please share your thoughts and doings in the 03: Earth Zone! 

We are actually quite marveled at Mathias. At the age of ten he got into reading Jack London books of living in the wilderness and sled dogs pulling sleds in the far north. He then happened to come across an old dog harness in his grandfather's attic that Mathias used to train his dog to 'be a sled dog' pulling a small sled around town for chores. The only other love Mathias had was ships, big ships. He had no doubt that, although he lived in a land with really no dogsledding and also really very little chance to travel, becoming a sailor is what he wanted to do. Then, the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and at the age of 20 he was charged up to get going on his sled dog dreams. He had an read about the small community of Illulisiat in Greenland in a magazine, and not knowing anything about it (or about such a thing as working permits) he packed a few things in his backpack, collected his small savings, wrote to his family and bought an airline ticket to Greenland!  He did get out to run with a 'real team of Greenlandic huskies' with some Native Inuit hunters, but without any money or means to get a job, his journey to be dogsledding just began.  He soon got on a small plane to Baffin Island in Canada and before long he was back through Europe where he eventually landed a job to work in a sled dog kennel. Talk about a man of many resources! Oh, and he did try out that sailor thing as well, but that was soon dropped for the sake of the sled dogs. 

While tourists travel from around the world to come here to run their own team of 5-6 huskies dogsledding from cabin to cabin (and sauna!) on the week-long trips, this deep love for huskies and dogsledding is obviously at the very heart of the Tanama Husky Kennel.  A beautiful little red house is the center of the dog universe as it sits in the middle of large roomy dog kennels where the huskies run free. The kennel is completely surrounded by a larger fence so every day when Wilma and Mathias do the chores, huskies of all ages roam around to play while the old retired huskies rotate sleeping on the leather coach inside at night! 

Being the first resupply point, 22 50-lb bags of dog food and boxes of human food were delivered here.  However, remember that Mathias also had to make several 100+ km roundtrip visits to Customs to pick up (strange!) packages from Education Basecamp and beyond! They will also be driving out the dog food that we do not take with us now to the next and final re-supply point in the Norwegian community of Karasjok.  Last, but not least, they have been the most wonderful hosts to all 18 of us the last many days. We have been busy getting everything charged up - from the Polar Huskies to the new batteries sent to us, to all the technology we carry with us, and yes, ourselves. Once again we are being served one delicacy after another. "They have my favorite Danish lever pate," exclaims Mille. "We are treated to saunas and some wonderful touring of the area." We visited the Sámi capital of Finland, the community of Inari about 40 km (25 miles) from Ivalo where the Finnish Sámi Parliament resides, and also the world-renowned Siida Museum. 

Do you have any dandelions in your yard at home? These flowers that so many of us consider a 'bad weed' is actually very rich in vitamins A, B and C, as well as essential oils. When you eat dandelion it will induce salt and water in your body and increase your appetite! It is excellent for gout and urinary troubles as well as keeping your bowel movements in tip-top shape! That was just some of what we learned at the special exhibit at the Siida Museum about the Sámi and their traditional use of plants. The bark of pine trees can be made into dyes, tans medicines and even flower used for baking bread. 'Kombo' is when the milk from reindeer and goats is preserved with herbs and flowers such as fireweed. As is the case with most plants, the whole plant of fireweed can be used for something. The root is excellent to cure the white blisters you can get in your mouth, the stems are eaten as a vegetable and the leaves are used for tea or to clean fish! This is important to notice in this region where fishing in the huge Inari Lake, with its more than 3300 islands, is the traditional way of life more so than reindeer herding. Oh, about all those islands - as Mathias told us, the definition of an island is any 'land' with one pine tree! 

We did see lots of reindeer in Inari though at the Reindeer Race Cup. Two days of reindeer races, lasso throwing, reindeer burgers and everything else reindeer you can possibly think about.  This was along with everything beautifully Sámi and very unique from Sámi reindeer boots, to kolts, and hats! "It very much reminded me of a animal fair event in the United States, but instead of the rodeo it is the reindeer races that draw the biggest crowds here," says Mille. And what an incredible form of racing it is to watch! The racing reindeer wear a sort of a bridle just around the base of its antlers and the skier behinds the reindeer is pulled in two ropes attached to the body harness worn by the reindeer. That is all there is to it. As the reindeer come flying out of the starting gates, like any purebred racing horses, the skiers are hunkered down behind the reindeer bodies to create the least possible amount of air resistance in their slick suits and air dynamic helmets. And let us assure you, those reindeer are indeed charged up and getting it done! 

This week's first Polar Husky Superstar is Tucker, who without doubt, is the most charged up Polar Husky in the Kennel. Tucker is very shy with new people, but he is simply fearless when it comes to being a sled dog. No matter what it will take, he is one to be getting it done! Take a few weeks back when we set out to cross our first large reindeer bridge. No Polar Husky was more charged up about that challenge than Tucker! Tucker is already a brilliant point dog and a good lead dog as well, and he is still learning. Lean, fast and very athletic, his crazy enthusiasm and powerful pulling technique indeed makes up the greatest potential in the world. Fearless is very desirable in a point dog, however a lead dog needs to be one to also recognize and gauge danger (i.e. such as thin ice). This is something we are confident Tucker will learn as he runs in point with some help from Freja. 

While Beacon, who is this week's second Polar Husky Superstar is maybe not quite as charged up as Tucker when it comes to hard hard work, Beacon is simply amped to go fast and always super-duper happy. Extremely playful, very intelligent and somewhat easily bored, luckily Beacon is one to look for ways to entertain himself (and others). He loves loping. At any little change, Beacon will simply start loping, and with his powerful chest he easily gets the rest of the team flying with the sled to follow. He is extremely vocal about it too! So vocal it can actually be a bit of a problem. A really nice guy, Beacon is one that runs with pretty much any dog in the kennel, but he does, unfortunately, love to growl. A lonely pup, we are actually thinking that Beacon maybe never grew to understand that growling is considered negative by the other dogs in the kennel. Or maybe, just maybe, he is simply just that charged up... to join the rest of the Polar husky gang in getting it done!