The event was held at the Finnish Embassy, courtesy of His Excellency Ambassador Leinonen and his team, led by Annika Härkönen.Our speaker was Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels, PhD, who spent many weeks on this farm in the Northern part of Lapland and who devoted her free time to help run the farm during the winter. Temperatures may fall to minus 35 degrees Celsius with the amount of daylight reduced to four hours a day. One can only imagine how many layers of clothing are needed to keep warm in such weather conditions. The farm is well equipped to provide sturdy clothing to its visitors who want to enjoy a sleigh ride with the wonderful and diligent huskies. These dogs are Alaskan Huskies, bred for their perseverance and obedience, who can run for hours on icy tracks. They live in huts and feed on warm meat soup to obtain enough liquids.

During the presentation we were able to enjoy spectacular photos of the beautiful icy landscape, the sunrise, the Northern lights and last but not least, the wonderful dogs and their sleighs.
The star of our event was a retired Husky, called Mercury, who after his active time as an athletic sleigh dog, now enjoys his final years in Belgium with our speaker Amanda. He was very well-behaved and enchanted our audience.

Once the Huskies have reached retirement age, they can be adopted and taken care of by anyone interested in doing so ; or they can be sponsored. Furthermore, there is the possibility to work on the Husky farm for a few weeks or months. Accommodation and food is provided for those who help run the farm. For further information, please contact Gudrun Schmidt from the German Group.

Thanks to our host, the Finnish Embassy and also to the members of the Finnish and German Groups for organising this very enjoyable event and providing excellent homemade specialties.

Vicky Kloppenburg
German Group