Tromsø New Year’s Eve 2022/2023
Inhalt/Content
Dog sledding and Pinocchio
One of the things we had been looking forward to for a long time and had already planned ahead for was the dog sled ride! For this, we had to go to a hotel in the city center early in the morning, from where a bus with all the participants was supposed to depart for Villmarkssenter. Of course, we had already been there in the summer, but in the winter, there were completely different activities possible with the huskies, such as the aforementioned sled ride.
After arriving at the Villmarkssenter, we immediately went to the cabin to change. Although we were already wearing thick winter clothing, we still had to put on overalls and extra thick boots, similar to when we did the husky hike in the summer. Here, outside the city, it was a few degrees colder, so we needed the thick clothing.
After changing clothes, we were led to the prepared dog sleds that were waiting for us behind the dog kennels. Since it was dark, I can’t give you the exact number of sleds, but there were probably around 8 to 12, each with up to 10 leashed huskies ready to go. The dogs were already very excited, and the few still tied up in the kennel were barking like crazy. Only two guests were allowed to sit in front of the driver per sled. Mark got the first sled all to himself, which was driven by a woman. We were in the second sled, which was driven by a friendly man. The remaining guests who had also booked the tour were in the other sleds behind us, but since we could only look forward, it’s hard to say how many sleds were behind us.
The sleds were then launched one by one and shortly after each other. The man who led our sled was from Wales and told us a lot about dog sledding during the ride. For example, he mentioned that the dogs are used to running in colder temperatures and actually sweat more at around 0 degrees Celsius. We also learned that some of the young dogs from our first visit in the summer, who were named after Italian pasta dishes or Game of Thrones characters, were now part of the sled dog team. Although we could talk a lot, there were several interruptions because the second row of dogs in our sled (dogs 3 and 4) occasionally wanted to quarrel. The same happened with Mark’s sled several times. In fact, “our” dogs as well as those from Mark’s sled belonged to the woman who was steering his sled. She was training for dog sledding races in which she travels for up to 2 weeks in icy cold weather. Sometimes we also had to stop because, with the comparatively little snow, the sleds got stuck in bushes or small pits where it became difficult for the dogs to pull. Overall, it was a great experience, and at least because of the low temperatures and little snowfall, we had a better view.
After about an hour, we were back at the camp and went as a group to visit the young dogs. Here we received a similar introduction to the dog breeding that we had heard back in the summer. After the presentation, we were free to move around the camp and pet each of the huskies. Some of them were very excited and jumped up on us. Then we changed back into our regular clothes and, since it was now lunchtime, we all went to the food tent. This time we were served reindeer soup and chocolate cake, both of which were very tasty. We also chatted with the other guests on the tour, who came from all different countries. Finally, we couldn’t resist buying a few souvenirs. They were certainly more expensive than in other souvenir shops directly in Tromsø, but at least we knew that the money was going to benefit the huskies in some way.
We said goodbye to the dogs and took the bus back to the city where we bought more souvenirs as gifts for our families back home. It was actually not easy to find something original, as we had already brought back many things from our North Cape trip. The rest of the afternoon is less exciting to describe. Nathalie went for a run again, but this time across the bridge to the other half of Tromsø, while Mark played on the Switch and I read. When Nathalie returned, we played a co-op game (“Moving Out”) on the Switch together, which took a lot of nerves (Nathalie: I love the game! It’s similar to Overcooked, which I love!). At least we managed to get the first level on gold. In the evening, we had the leftovers from yesterday’s fish soup.
At the end of the day, we watched a movie. By chance, we stumbled upon Guillermo Del Toro’s “Pinocchio“. Guillermo Del Toro also made one of Nathalie’s favorite movies, “Pan’s Labyrinth“, so she wanted to watch this movie as well. Since it looked interesting and was actually better rated than Disney’s live-action “Pinocchio” movie that came out around the same time in 2022, we watched the movie together. And indeed, the movie was really well directed and had an interesting story until the end. The only negative thing one could possibly judge would be the ending itself and the fact that the movie was quite long, almost 2 hours. After that, we watched a making-of of the movie on Netflix and were very surprised to find out that it was not a pure animated film, but a stop-motion film. You could actually see that in the movie, but because the landscapes and characters looked so detailed, we didn’t think that they had actually built all the puppets and props themselves. Other friends we later told about this were also unaware of this and saw the movie in a completely different light. It was also startling to hear that the movie was in production for over 15 years. It makes you wonder what impact events like COVID-19, technological advances, or the shift to streaming services have on such long film projects…
