Overnight Husky Sledding Tour

We offer you this unforgettable adventure as a private tour for 2-3 people. Everyone joining drives their own dog team. Everyone works together as a team and helps with everything from taking care of the huskies, cooking, loading the sleds, chopping wood etc.

As all Ilonka’s experiences, this is a real experience. Real experience where we are at the mercy of nature. We invite you to join us and our dogs on this awesome adventure!

We travel through the Lappish fairytale forests, admire the mysterious northern lights in different colors, towards spring also enjoying the day light and sunshine. Sleeping in a basic hut or a tent with a fireplace is an experience on its own! Connecting with nature and your true nature. Fetching water from an icehole, chopping wood for the fire and cooking with basics. This is real life!

Our three-day program is long enough to experience simple life, silence, darkness, no screens, just nature.

iIncluding:

• farm visit and one night stay at Ilonka
• experienced wilderness guide
• mushing session: you learn about mushing and how to drive your sled, you also get to know your dogs and learn about their life on the farm
• the guided sled tour into the wilderness and anything Mother Nature has to offer us on our tour: snowy landscapes, northern lights, full moon, sky full of stars…
• one team of dogs per person, 4 dogs per sled
• delicous meals, sauna, accommodation (2 nights)
• warm overalls, shoes, gloves to wear on the tour, all needed equipment (tents, sleepingbags, cooking utensils etc)

• Please note: this is a tour into the wilderness with changing landscape, also up and down hills. The tour requires good fitness and balance skills.

Itinerary

Day 1 – Arrival to Ilonka, training and sauna, first night at Ilonka

Day 2 – Our dog mushing adventure begins, overnight in a wilderness cabin or tent

Day 3 – Adventure continues and returning to Ilonka

Day 1

• Arrival between 11-13. Settling down and receiving equipment for the adventure. • We will learn about the equipment and how to drive the sled and take care of the dogs.
• After afternoon coffee, we do a training run with empty sleds. Back at the farm we will have dinner together going through the itinerary for the next two days.
• Evening sauna before going to bed.
• First night you will spend in the traditional sauna cabin (ecological outhouse, fresh spring water in the sauna).

Day 2

• After breakfast we will pack the sleds and prepare and harness the dogs.
• Today’s journey goes through the hilly Lappish landscape.
• We will have lunch on the trail and arrive to the camp in the late afternoon.
• Everybody helps with taking care of the dogs preparing the camp, cooking and getting water from the lake or river.
• We will sleep either in a wilderness cabin or in a shared tent with a fireplace, on reindeer hides in warm sleeping bags.

Day 3

• After breakfast, we will start the day mushing and enjoying the nature. Weather and wind will determine more precisely which route we will take.
• Our tour ends at Ilonka Farm. We will say good bye to the dogs and go inside the kota or main house to warm up by the fire and have some late lunch and coffee.
• When heading home, you will be one unforgettable memory richer.
• We end the tour ca 16, depending on the routes, weather etc.

Longer tours possible upon request.

Not included:

• Travel to and from Ilonka – we can definitely arrange your transport from and to Ivalo airport
• Travel insurance

Before the trip we will send you a full list of how to prepare and a packing list for the trip.

BEFORE YOU BOOK, make sure you read the itenarary thoroughly and  all the info so you know what you can expect from this expedition and what is required of you as a participant.

Information for participants – who can join this adventure?

• Dog sledding in the wilderness with varying terrang and weather conditions requires fitness, strength, good coordination and balance skills but also a determined mind.
• Sometimes in heavy snow conditions you must help your dogs by kicking beside the sled and in steep up-hills run and push the sled. Remember that while doing this you have layers of winter clothes on you.
• We want to remind you that you will be responsible for a dog team on this adventure, which means that you for example don’t let go of the dog sled without it being securely anchored. We don’t want you, the dogs or anyone else getting injured.
• No previous dog sledding experience is required, but you must like animals and feel empathy for them.

Should I try to convince a friend to tag along?

• Only if they really want to go and understand what is required of them.
• Please contact us with any questions!

Staying longer at Ilonka?

Please let us know if you want to stay longer at Ilonka! We are happy to arrange your accomodation before and / or after the overnight husky sledding tour at the Ilonka farm.