I am faced by a yard full of excited
huskies. In fact, the word ‘excited’ doesn’t really do justice to their state
of near-frenzied anticipation.
The venue is Svalbard, Norway’s Arctic
archipelago that is around a 600-mile flight north of the city of Tromsø at a
line of latitude of 78°North, and I am about to try my hand at dog-sledding
through the polar winter.
It is just before 4pm and it is dark. In
fact, it has been dark all day. Around midday the sky flirted with a slightly
bluer shade of black, but I don’t think I would have even noticed if it hadn’t
been pointed out to me.
