Dogsledding!

Hi everyone!

We're excited to tell you about our latest adventure... DOGSLEDDING!

First of all, we love winter. There's just something about this season - being outdoors and just loving all the winter activities. We've always thought dogsledding would be fun and figured, why not do it now?! We're both in Ottawa and there just had to be a place around here to try it out. After researching online for a good spot, we found Escapade Eskimo, which is in Otter Lake, Quebec, and only a 75 minute drive from Ottawa. We were more than thrilled with the experience!

                                                   

After arriving, meeting Sylvain, our dog sledding captain, and getting a brief overview of our trail and the safety precautions, we drove to our starting point. Once we got there, we took out the sleds and got all the dogs hooked up and latched on. This wasn't the easiest job to say the least - 20 extremely strong dogs are hard to keep in line, especially when they are excited and hyper!

There were three sleds in total. Sylvain had his own sled with 8 dogs, another couple had a sled with 6 dogs, and then we had our sled with 6 dogs. So there were 20 dogs all latched on and waiting to go! They were so cute and so ready! Once we were all set, it was time to go. Melissa drove first while I sat in the sled taking in the scenery. What an amazing trail. We were so lucky that just a couple days before there was a huge snowstorm, which left us with lots of fresh, untouched snow. Peaceful, tranquil and so serene, the sledding was so much fun! It's amazing how strong those 6 dogs are and how they can just pull you along. The trail was so picturesque and it was amazing just cruising along enjoying the winter weather!

We sledded along and then half way through, we turned around and switched drivers so that we could both get a chance to drive, and both get the opportunity to sit in the sled and try taking pictures. It was so incredible to see how well trained the dogs were. We were told to yell 'woah' in order to get them to stop (and we definitely needed to yell this loudly and often because the dogs were definitely able to pull both of our weights even when we wanted them to stop!), and 'ok' or 'en avant' to get them to go. It's amazing how they listen (most of the time!).  

In total, we were out for about an hour and a half, and did approximately 15 km of trail! Thank you to all the dogs for their wonderful work! It was sunny, there was little wind, and it wasn't the coldest day on record, so we had perfect conditions for sledding! We bundled ourselves up and were pretty proud that only our feet were cold on the journey.

After returning back to the beautiful little wood chalet, we were greeted by Sylvain's wife Caroline, for hot chocolate and a snack. It was a perfect way to take the little chill off from being outside! We were also given a CD with all the pictures that Sylvain took from his camera while dogsledding. That was a surprise, and it is so nice to have those memories! 

We had a fantastic day and are so happy to have finally gone dogsledding! Thanks to Sylvain and Caroline for their awesome service! Here is a link to their website if you are interested - we definitely recommend it http://www.escapade-eskimo.com/index_en.htm! 

Dog sledding... check! Hopefully you'll get to try it at some point - we can't wait to go again! :) Maybe a two day trip next time...???



After finishing our dogsledding adventure... we want to go again!