Dog Sledding in a
Winter Wonderland

If you have ever travel to Canada/Alaska/Norway or anywhere else that is perpetually wintery & you haven’t gone dog sledding… are you, are you okay?

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I loved dog sledding so much I did it twice in two years, both with different companies & they were super amazing!

 

The first one I did was March 2015, basically as soon as I could organise people to go with & a way to get there. I went with Snowy Owl dog sledding tours in Canmore. We did the powder hound express, it’s a two hour trip & We had about 15 minutes whilst everything was getting set up where we could play with, take photos of & love on the gorgeous puppers.

 

Then it was go time & the noise was out of this world ha! They knew what was coming & literally howled at an ear-splitting volume, ready to sprint off the second the brake was released. At the halfway point the driver switched and became the passenger. So, it was pretty even, getting to steer the sled & call out all of the ridiculous commands & vegging out inside the toasty, canvas sled. Once it was all over the dogs got loaded back into the trucks & taken back to the lodge, they only do one trip before they swap the dogs because #responsible. We had hot chocolate & campfire treats right next to the edge of the lake before heading back. Honestly, lands in the top 5 experiences I had in Canada.

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Similarly, to the first, it was 2 hours but this time we went to Spray lakes. They collected us from our accommodation & once we picked up from every other hotel in Banff, we headed for Spray lakes which is around an hour’s drive. Everyone was chatting and friendly on the minivan on the way there and we met a great young American couple.

 

It was pretty much all stations go when we got there, so there was no pre-playtime, but you get around 30 minutes at the halfway point on the middle of the lake to take photos & play with the dogs. The guide we had was awesome, he saw how freezing I was & fished out mittens big enough to fit 4 people so that I could focus on enjoying the experience rather than fight the -20* cold.   

 

Neither company had any faults so I wouldn’t choose one over the other, but obviously the one in Banff was a little more convenient because we didn’t need transport to go and meet the tour.

18/10 experience, please do it if you ever have the chance. It seems like quite a bit of money, but god damn its worth every cent.