Siberian husky - Huskies.cz- Finnmarkslopet2008

The Articel for Hakadal Sledehunklubb Slaedesporet- Norway - 15th of October 2007

Let me introduce myself.
My name is Jana Henychova, I am 36 and I come from the Czech Republic. I am an owner of 22 pure breed Siberian Huskies and this winter season I am going to take a part in Finnmarkslopet 500 km. You can see my websites www.huskies.cz
When I was young I attended ski classes of a sports grammar school. I have done many kinds of sport such as cross-country skiing, orienteering, triathlon, rock climbing. All of these sports unfold endurance, tenacity and joy from the movement outdoor. All these qualities led to the time ten years ago when I got my first Siberian Husky and then everything went in the same order as by many friends who became addicted to the mushing sport. There were more and more dogs till it has become the number 22 when 12 of them are my own bred puppies. I do not get rid of the old retired dogs, so I have both old and young. All of them are my life friends and they stay with me. During the years I have also found a reasonable usage for the not-racing dogs. We popped into a show business a bit and the dogs are great models for the photographers or commercial makers. The most important of all is my work with tourists where the dogs get in a close contact with the people and vice versa. I first teach the people how to love the dogs then how to put on harnesses, line up the dogs and go for a ride.
Internet
One of my other hobbies is the Internet where I like creating websites. Thanks to this interest I became one of the organizers of the stage sled dog race Sedivackuv Long. It is taking place on the ridges of the Orlicke mountains (Eastern Bohemia) and its distance is 222 and 333km. See www.czechlongtrail.com
I also work as a secretary and a webmaster of the international pure breed Nordic race dogs organization FISTC, www.fistc.com . At the same time I am a member of the board of the Czech pure breed dogs sport club CMSKSP.
Nowadays thanks to the Internet you can watch and report activities all around the world. There is no wonder that I was able to get info about the famous race in Scandinavia. You know this yourself pretty well. You get an idea and it stays in your mind for a long time when suddenly…”And why can’t I go?” One day I got this idea and question and since then everything has started getting more particular outline. The breakpoint for me was an email saying:

“We, the Norwegian Husky Club, have heard that you may plan to come and race in Norway next season. Is that right?
We would love to compete with you.
We will try to assist you if you come, at least with a place to stay or train if you need it, somewhere in Norway.“
I race with a purebreed long distance team.

Johanne Sundby
Chair

In a short time I got more emails from Norway with the offer of a help. I started to communicate with Geir Wiik about the training and preparing of the dogs. All of this was a fantastic motivation and support for me. I wanted to get things done to the very end. Geir and Johanne informed me about the seminar that was due to happen in September. And I started to prepare my first “spy” journey to Norway.

The journey to Norway
Before my journey to Norway I had studied the Nordic legends, myths and books about the explorers of the Polar areas. It is no wonder that Roald Amundsen and his ship Fram became my favourite heroes. I bought myself a book “How to learn Norwegian yourself” and I studied the beginnings of the language, its specialities of the phonetics and its similarities with the Danish or Swedish. I had studied some travelogues and that was about the end of my theoretical preparation for that moment.
I had also found out that in the Czech Republic are a lot of the travel agencies specialized in Scandinavia or particularly Norway and even that in Prague lives quite a large community of the Scandinavians who are often organizing various cultural and social activities. http://www.scandinavianhouse.cz/ , http://www.periscope.cz/

The Seminar
Unfortunately Lance Mackey apologized himself in the last minute and so the organizers had to find a substituting program, mostly in Norwegian and Danish language. (Thank you for the multi-simultaneous translation to my host lady Johanne Sundby.)

A typical musher of the 21st century would never survive without his personal laptop and well done presentation in the Power Point program…

Elisabeth Edland,
Tore Bergby a Hilde Askildt, http://www.luksefjell.com/ ,
Charlotte Leschbrandt, veterinárka FL
Lou Serre, CA
Hege Ingebrigtsen, http://www.funracing.no/ ,
Per Jessen, DK, http://www.perjessen.dk/

I think that the most excellent speech was given by Tore Bergby a Hilde Askildt. It was clear what they spoke about and what they wanted to say. You could not miss their kind and sensitive attitude to their dogs. He, very shy, almost timid and on the other side she, talkative, self-confident, absolutely perfectly fitting into one another. The top of their talk was a video from the finish of this year’s Finnmarkslopet and hugging with Kjell Brennodden. At that moment I turned to Johanne that was translating for me and I saw tears in her eyes. At the same time Tore and Hilge also disappeared from the stage. It was a strange moment in which was something very mystic, indescribable…
I was absolutely stunned by an unexpected experience that was for me the speech by Per Jessen about a Sirius guard in Greenland. It was very interesting, witty and joyful. The final music clip “It’s my life” brought tears into eyes of all the sensitive souls in the room. Some people complaint that Per spoke too fast and that they could understand just 50%. Don’t worry. I understood even less but it was wonderful. Marvellous pictures, witty videos, professional presentation, sympathetic speaker…
I found out that a good speaker can pass over his or her ideas to the patient and concentrated listener even if you cannot understand the words very well. He or she only has to have something to say. Next important fact is the technical background – materials such as photographs, videos or their combination with music. I believe that when you live with the dogs all the time you become sensitive to their behaviour and habits that makes you better understand the people whose language is not understandable for you. Hilde Askildt spoke so well that she was really acting on the stage. I understood her the best…
Overall I was excited from the seminar and I hope that we can organize something similar in our country.

Mushing in Bohemia
The Czech Republic has about 10mil inhabitants. About 500 of them are members of mushing organizations as the active mushers. This season in czech will take place about 38 races: 20 off snow, 6 sprint snow, 10 mid-snow and 2 long snow. The history of mushing in the Czech Republic is very similar to the Norwegian. The organization SSPS gathers competitors of both pure and non breed dogs- www.mushing.cz.
Today in Bohemia exist excellent top sprint races with 4-6 dogs teams represented mostly by Mr.Jiri Krejci and Jiri Trnka. Another successful and also mass trend are the new individual disciplines off snow such as canicross, bikering or scootering where the most noticeable person is Mrs. Sona Klikarova, Mr.Pavel Porubsky or the new growing junior talent Miss Nicole Maresova. 38 of Czech competitors will take part in the European Championship ESDRA on 27-28th October 2007 in Poland, http://www.ec2007.mushing.pl/ and also many in the World championship IFSS in Italy, http://piandelagotti2007.fimss.com/. The fast growing group of mushers are the enthusiasts and dog lovers who are turning their attention to the MID and partly also to the LONG races. In this group we also have growing top sportsmen mushers. They breed mostly the gun-hound dogs and so they concentrate their main activities on the European continent. Mr. Pavel Pfeifer systematically builds with his dogs a successful unlimited team and we expect his great introduction in this year winter races in the Spanish Pirena, http://www.pirena.com/. Mr. Radek Havrda and Jiri Vondrak are concentrating their training activities to the race La Grande Odysee in France, www.grandeodyssee.com/. Last year Radek won this competition.
In the Czech Republic you can find all sorts of producers of the mushing goods and equipment: www.manmat.cz , www.sled.cz , www.eurohusky.com , www.zerodc.cz

The Norwegian experience
Norway is very beautiful county. People here live in a close touch with the nature and they are really proud of it. Same as everywhere people in Norway are various. They have awkward names that you write differently than you pronounce. For a stranger it takes a while to remember it or recognize whether it is a man or woman.

Same as everywhere there live people, the dog lovers and also people who have the dogs maybe a little extremelly as a sports equipment. Mushing in Bohemia same as in Norway has followed almost the same way for the past years. In Norway though the mushing follows mostly the way of the LONG races. It is no wonder that the Norwegians have their winner of the IDITAROD Mr. Robert Sorli, who is ideal example for all the competitors. The nature and landscape conditions for this type of race are here just perfect. On the other hand mushers in the Central Europe become more interested in the individual disciplines with one or two dogs. It is because there is no need to change a lifestyle for that and it can fit even to the jobs that demand a lot of time. These individual disciplines are not dependable on snow and so there is nothing that would stop this sport from its development.

Mushers of Bohemia are also interested in LONG races but all the dog breeders have focused their activities mostly on the gun-hound dogs and then their sporting area is very limited. Scandinavia is surely very alluring but at the same time they are afraid of the extreme weather conditions.

My way to Norway confirmed what I have felt before. The most important in the training is the inner calmness and peace not only for the musher but also for the dogs. It is not necessary to ride so many of kilometers but to think about the training systematically and keep on doing it. What I think is important are the “effective kilometers” and the absolute obedience of the dogs. I could try all of this at the training with Geir Wiik and his dogs. Yes, this was the real training. No unnecessary yelling of the dogs when lining up, no affected pulling the lines but concentrated waiting for the command. It is important that the dogs learn to relax and regenerate straight after they stop.

Another important knowledge for me is to learn about the material used in Norway. Johanne showed me the use of all the important things and I got from her lots of things as well. Thanks to Geire I bought myself some nice new things too and so I think that my equipment for the FINNMARKSLOPET is complete. At least I hope so.

The most important experience for the end. It is the fact that in Norway people fond of this sport are very solidary. The idea of establishing the Team of Norway confirms that people here don’t think only of the own success and victory but they want to support also the young mushers. It is very positive message in this modern always rushing world.

Another contributing point is the importance to share your experience and knowledge with the public. And this can be done by organizing seminars such as this year did the club HADAKAL. Thank you for that and see you in March in Alta.