For the Love of Dogs

Carlijn Hogeboom loves dogs. Her winter job demands that she spends up to 14 hours braving the bitter Arctic winds caring for 108 dogs. During the cold winter months, where most of us will spend our time curled up in front of the TV, Carlijn is braving the elements as a husky musher in Tromso, Norway. Dutch teenager Carlijn has a variety of normal hobbies that include cycling around Holland and horse riding. However, one day she decided she was fed up of studying, and wanted to widen her cultural knowledge: “I wanted time for myself because we had some rough times within our family so I needed to really make the choice for myself.”

One day she woke up and thought “why not?” ditching her normal life in Holland to become a husky musher in Norway. You may be thinking why choose this obscure job? Well, Carlijn always wanted a dog from a young age and has a keen passion for animals, having ridden horses from the age of 7. She also knew an old school friend who decided to drop out from studying and start working with sled dogs all over Norway and Sweden: “When he was back in Holland I talked to him and I was like, okay, I’m just going to try it and see if I can find a job as a husky musher,” she says.

Mushing is a traditional means of transport within the Arctic regions that uses a pack of dogs to pull sleds. Carlijn, works for a small family run dog sledding company that offer set and tailor-made husky mushing tours over the barren Arctic ice plains that range from hour-long trips to two full days.

During peak season (December to March), Carlijn wakes up at 8am to feed the dogs. Fuelling 108 feisty huskies means filling 108 empty stomachs with energising meals that consist of protein-packed animal entrails. Before each feast, she sets about defrosting and preparing the meat prior to feeding it to the dogs. This is repeated from three to four times daily, depending on the amount of trips the dogs run in a day. “They run like crazy two to three times a day so they use up a lot of energy,” she says.

After feeding the dogs, Carlijn organises the harnessing order of the dogs within each individual sled team. “A team consists of between 4 and 6 dogs. If you have really thick fresh snow then we’ll put 8 in a team because all of the dogs will get too tired to run another time,” she says. Being in charge of organising sled teams is a painstaking task, as the position of each individual dog within a team must be carefully considered:

“First you have dogs that can run together and cant run together so you have to be careful otherwise they will fight and they can kill each other. Secondly, you must remember that they are sled dogs and its what they are born for. Each dog has to learn how to adapt the level of energy that they give each time,” she explains.

Carlijn takes the organised teams up on to the icy plains and harnesses the dogs into each of the 8 sleds, ready for the morning trip. This process would be repeated three times a day for each individual trip she would go on. After the last trip of the day she would feed the dogs their evening meal and finish at around 10pm. Carlijn loves her job:

“You get to see a different part of the world whilst work alongside some of the most amazing animals even though as a worker it can be quite tough” she says.

So, the next time the monotony of everyday routine causes you to question if there is light at the end of the tunnel, why not drop everything and jump on a plane to a far away country and get knee deep in a new profession?