In the immortal words of the Wiggles, “Here comes the reindeer“
So, I have been dreading and looking forward to this day for a long time. And I’m gunna give you spoilers. I fell off. 4 times!!!
They each get more spectacular as we move through them, and for good reason. And I will address each one and the reasons (yes, REASONS) they happened. They weren’t my fault, I promise (pinky lie). But I just may have contributed in some way, I am sure.
We drove out just after breakfast, maybe 9:15 am. By the way, we were ALWAYS early with our meet up times. If you are that person in the group who is always late.. Don’t be! No one appreciates waiting in -17° waiting for the same person to turn up 10 minutes late. In fact, I would like to say, our meet time was 9:15, but were were all there ready to go at 9:05am. And that’s the way it was all week, Coz we were the best group ever…. 😂
About 25 minutes from the Aurora Camp was the village where the Sami people who herd these reindeer live. It’s just past the Ice Hotel in fact. Nerves were creeping in at the point we drove into the reindeer camp.
When we arrived we were met by the “tour guide” (and I don’t remember his name unfortunately), and he had 2 others with him. We all grabbed a handful of reindeer moss each from a larger bag. This is their cocaine, their sugar. They love this stuff. And again, like last blog, a flash back memory goes to restaurant Noma in Copenhagen (often known as the best restaurent on the planet) where we were given reindeer moss as a course. So I can see why they like it. It is quite sweet and when it is flash fried and served with some creme fraiche it is lifted to a new level. I recommend.
As I may have mentioned before, Sami people are the only ones allowed to herd reindeer. It is a both a privelege to do this, but also a right that has been handed down for hundreds of years. To be considered Sami or allowed to be given rights of a Sami, you must have Sami blood in you, or be married to one who has, and you must identifiy as Sami. Now as you know I am writing this a couple of weeks late, so I have missed out on the ability to recall some details like names, but the name “Chris” sounds familiar. He was one of the guides and actually came from Australia, Cronulla, New South Wales to be exact. He left the beach life of southern Sydney and moved to the Kiruna area and met the love of his wife, who is Sami. Thus he gets to enjoy the joys of reindeers and -30°. He’s a pretty handy guy to be fair, and a whiz on and off the snow mobile as you shall hear.
So we tried to get up close to the reindeer by bribing them with reindeer candy and become familiar with being around them. The guides herded them as they ran around the yard, using a lasso to catch their target. Then it was about hitching them up. Unlike the dogs, they are not as friendly and certainly not as compliant, but they are very strong, and very very fast.
The way this works is that you stand on the back of a sled with the reindeer hitched to the front. These sleds are quite rudemantary and they look like they are basically branches held together, but to be fair, it’s done very well. The reindeer have a long piece of wood coming from either side of its harness. And that wood connects to the sled proper. The reindeer also has a rope coming from it’s harness which I must hold on to. If I let go of that, the reindeer escapes. More on that later… The sled has a handle which I must also hold on to. If I let go of that, I let go of the sled and the reindeer escapes. More on that later… This is what it looks like.
So we set off, in a line of 9. The leader at the front and he sets the pace. Apparently. Like the dog sledding, we go off on a path already cut by a snow mobile. It’s safer this way because the reindeer know which way to go, and less likely (but not impossible) for the reindeer to go bush! As you can see above, he has 2 ropes which are used to guide the reindeer, but we only had one. They would just follow. Oh, I almost forgot, we also have a brake. We have to stand on a 2″ rail in our big snow boots and if we want to slow down, we lift one foot off the rail, balance on 1 leg, put our foot onto a metal bar that digs into the snow and slows us down. Sounds fun huh? How is 1″ of a rail, digging into snow going to stop them?
Fall number 1
I was in about 4th place I think. And my reindeer was a bit twitchy. Why did I get the twitchy one? So we start moving and my reindeer is going a bit slow, so one of the guides gives him a bit of a gee-up! I wasn’t ready for this and as soon as it took off, and jolted forward, I slipped off the rails, let go of the rope, let go of sled and fell. I really wasn’t ready for it. But I had a reindeer right behind me right? And he wasn’t stopping. So I quickly did my best Van Damme and barrel rolled to the left. My reindeer didn’t have anywhere he could really go as there was a congo line ahead, so he stopped just behind the one in front. I brushed the snow off and got back on.
Fall number 2
These was similar to the first in many ways and we had moved several hundred metres when mine was just meandering along, creating a big gap between itself and the heels of the one somewhere in the distance. So Chris decided he would ride up next to it in his snow mobile and gave it a slight slap on the backside, and it took off! Right into a Gallop! Those big hooves were high and it was catching up to the reindeer in front rather quickly. This was too fast! I took my right foot off of the rail and tried to plunge that brake into the snow. I must have done it too hard, or too quick (no detailed instructions were provided) and the brake bounced into hard ground, or hard ice or something. The back of the sled jumped up and I went flying! Oh, the embarrassment. I had let go of the rope and had no hope in hanging on to the handle in all the commotion, and Chris had managed to stop the reindeer. I brushed myself off again, and not being hurt at all (after all it’s only snow) and hopped back on. Chris did mention that I should hang on to the rope.
Fall number 3
So we managed to get on again, and my reindeer was behaving, if not going a little slow. He also likes to cut corners. I was well aware from conversations at our briefing that reindeer have their own minds and will do what they want, when they want if it suits them. So, we would go around a corner to the right, and he would cut it off slightly, with a small tree often at that corner. The long piece of wood would scrape against the tree causing the right side of the sled to lift up on the edge of one of its skis. I used my legs as shock absorbers and managed to put my weight to the left while balancing, and correct it when we got to a straighter bit. So it was going okay and I was getting the hang of it. It was all going at a quite nice pace. Maybe not as fast as the ones in front, but I was happy with that as we would get there in the end! Chris wasn’t. He slipped alongside on his snow mobile, gave the reindeer a slap on the bum and gave a lound verbal “Yip Yip!” Oh my God! Straight into a full gallop again! I hung on as much as I could, but as those who ride horses know, a gallop is a bunch of massive plods of the feet and the sled was bouncing around as much as the reindeer was, and certainly as much as I was. I tried to brake, but as I said, balance is a thing… My leg left on the rail, my right leg somewhere near the brake (maybe), but I held onto the rope for all it was worth. Surely I, myself could be a better brake than a piece of metail gouging into snow! I saw in the corner of my right eye Chris leveling up with the snow mobile. If I could only hang on! Then I saw Chris LAUNCH himself off the snow mobile, diving across and catch the rope mid air just as I let it go. What a save! I brushed the snow off of me and got back on.
We finally reached the half way, turn around point. We stopped for a few photos, whilst I caught my breath. I wasn’t in a massive photo mood but I did manage to take a couple before handing the camera back to Angela who had not really ridden a reindeer much as the rickety sled she had, had broken off at the start. I would have been happy to swap places.
So…the return and…
Fall number 4
To recap, we had reached the end of the trail and were about to set off. The end of the track was a tear shape U-Turn and joined up with the beaten path. Just at this turn there was a small-ish tree. We know my reindeer likes to brush up against trees as he did it constantly, but the sled is built in a way that, as it does, the timber just brushes along along and the sled doesn’t catch. Or that is the way it works on the right side, but apparently these rickety built sleds aren’t built to a specific ‘design rules’ standard, and my sled got stuck on a notch in my sled! The reindeer was pulling and I was trying to shift my weight to dislodge it. It wasn’t going anywhere. One of the guides came over and tried with all his might to free the sled, all whilst the reindeer was pulling pulling and pulling. Eventually he managed to jostle it free and the reindeer took off like one of Santas reindeer with both of it’s front feet airborne as it pulled away. It had taken off! Then came the inevitable lurch forward and it is already in gallop mode. I tried to hang on, but it was impossible. No one could have hung on to the rope and sled, but I managed to hang on to the hand rail and the rope too as it happens. I hung on for dear life. This thing was unstoppable and I wasn’t letting go. I could see Peter to my left, he was rushing over, and as soon as he grabbed the reindeer, I finally gave up my mission and fell to the ground. Well if you could have seen it… Well, you can! Angela who was in the snow mobile, camera in hand managd to get a shot. Proof of me try and trying to hang on.
And with that, we had a nice ride home for 1.5 kilometes. No events, not falling off, I had finally tamed my reindeer. Once we got going, and went into a rhythm it was great. The reindeer got into a gallop a couple of times but I managed to slow it down using the brake. We had a nice little canter and I felt I had probably 100% 10% control of it all.
We returned to the reindeer camp, went inside of a Sami Lavvu. The Lavvu is basically what we know as a Teepee. It has a hole at the top to allow smoke to escape from the internal fire and gaps around the bottom for airflow. It was a relief to get out of the cold outside. It had actually gone down to -31° on the track. We had a lunch of salted dry meat, not too different from the meat we would have at the Kublai Kahn Restaurant in Adelaide, but of course freshly cooked on the fire alongside a nice hot Lingonberry juice cooked alongside.
That was my reindeer day done.
Steve Hunt 