Day 8,

our first full day begins at the lake,

 starting with breakfast,

 but first we decided to have a look around,

 there is a small store in the main building that the restaurant is in, here you can buy whole cured reindeer skins,

 and lots of cuddly toys,

 like these,

 they look so cute,

 I think Diana will buy one for the cats to play with,

 there are also some cooking aids,

 on to breakfast,

 there are a number of heated trays,

 sausages, eggs, bacon and toast seems like a good way to start the day,

next a walk in the frozen forest,

we were going sleighing,

a first for both of us,

we arrived at the huskies camp,

both Diana and myself had all of our cold weather gear on,

we were given instructions on how to use the brake and use your body to steer the sleigh,

and manage the team,

and we were off,

as it happened I was use as the example to the rest of the guests, 

and was made the last man, so I had to wear a day-glow vest so the guide could see that we were all in line,

Diana was the passenger, and photographer, it was bitingly cold,

but great fun,

Diana was really enjoying the ride,

well so was I,

in the middle of the lake we stopped,

 the guide very kindly stopping at each sleigh to take pictures of each team,

which the dogs did not like at all,

they just wanted to keep moving,

to keep themselves warm,

I had thought that the dogs would have been much larger,

but the six each sleigh had,

managed to pull the sleighs at a good turn of speed,

the only problem was we kept stopping, 

as one of the lead sleighs was very slow,

we crossed paths,

with one of the snowmobile groups,

then it was full ahead 5, 

it was full ahead 6, but one of our dogs slipped it's collar,

the only difficult part was keeping between the red markers,

the dogs always seemed to want to take a short cut into soft snow,

which as some teams found out meant a sleigh falling over,

we made good time over the lake,

and crossed a small strip of land,

I let the others get a way in front of us, 

then went full steam ahead,

and soon caught the others up,

we were rapidly approaching another strip of land,

which meant running with the sleigh to help the dogs pull up the bank,

but we soon had to stop to let the teams in front of us get a bit of a lead,

then we were back running through the forest and on to the home stretch, there is one disadvantage about being last,

all of the dogs defecate on the move, no stopping, 

so think about it, I think there were seven teams, each with six dogs, so you can imagine with little or no wind there was quite a miasma, or smelly air for us to go through!

we arrived back at the farm with the returning dogs,

and the ones not working barking at each other,

we waited our turn,

to be unhitched,

I have to say the dogs seemed to really love working,

and laying in the snow,

we had a look at some of the dogs that did not go out,

this one was injured some time ago,

but is making a good recovery,

what a great day we had, it was well worth the trip just for this, but there was still more to do, this is the view from the restaurant,

where we had lunch,

and warned up a little, but in truth we were not really that cold, the thermal overalls we were given really did keep the cold out,

in front of a log fire,

 after our lunch we moved to Santa's cabin,

for some arts and crafts,

we were being shown how to make a key-ring,

from the antler of a reindeer, first Diana,

then myself,

cut a piece off the antler,

and sanded down the rough edges,

next a hole is drilled, 

to take the ring,

then the arty thing, using a fine soldering iron Diana made a pattern in the antler,

that completed,

the next stage was to weave a lanyard,

using a hand or I should say knee held loom,

and in no time at all, ta-dah! a key-ring all home made,

on to our evening meal,

baked salmon for starters with salad for myself,

and some pasta for Diana,

for our main course, Rudolf, I mean reindeer steaks,

followed by dessert,

a few hours later, cold gear on, and we moved to a large circular building,

with a log fire in the center,

above us, 

lamps made from antlers held lights,

we had some bread and cold cuts naturally washed down with a few beers, and with that we staggered back to our cabin, and we were off to bed.