Tuesday, 10th of March 2009 

Today we drove 320 kilometers (round trip) on very icy roads to watch a dogsled racing competition, Polar Distance 2009. After three hours of driving we parked the car at 8.15 in the morning. Marita and Jan, our akita friends who told us about the competition in the first place, arrived a bit later. Unfortunately Manuel had to stay in the car because we didn't want to disturb the competing teams.

Marita thought the best place to get nice pictures was on the frozen lake, a couple of hundred meters from the start (and finish) line. That was a good tip, we think.

The captivating thing about this of event is that each team must "survive" on their own without any outside help. The driver and the dogs sleep together in the wilderness among wolves and bears (well, the aren't that many wolves in Dalarna to worry about them and the bears should be in their pits). But there still is the cold and a lot of snow.

It was really impressing to watch the twelve-dog teams and the "one breed" teams in particular. It is a beautiful to see a pack of Alaskan Malamutes, Samoyed dogs or Siberian Huskies running towards you. From a photographer's point of view the lighting conditions were not ideal (cloudy and a lot of snow), but there were a handful of nice shots on the memory cards.

After a rewarding morning we drove back to Vemdalen.

Well, this is the blog of Manuel and only a single sentence about him? No, here it comes:

Yesterday Manuel was rather exhausted after running five kilometers in deep snow. He slept most of the evening and the night. At 4.30 this morning he felt it was time to get some attention. Luckily we felt the same. We had a long trip ahead of us to Särna and Manuel made it very clear that whatever we were planning it would include the three of us, not only the humans. Half ways to Särna we stopped in a village in the middle of nowhere to switch drivers and at the same time Manuel got a chance to do "his things". The village consisted of at least fifty cottages, but no one seemed to live there, so we decided to unleash him. He started to trot in high pace and it looked as he had been here before, as he knew exactly where he should do his things. It was amusing to watch our akita boy.

From Manuel's perspective it was not an exciting day: a couple of hours in the car surrounded by howling and barking dogs. He was happy to meet Marita and Jan. It takes a while before Manuel decides to like someone, but with Marita and Jan this decision was made pretty early.

On the trip back to Vemdalen I had to step hard on the break pedal because of an reindeer calf on the road. Unfortunately no pictures of the cute calf.

/Mikael