Our Farm And Cabins

Our house is pretty much the last house to the west of the village of Hetta. Hence, all of the land to our west is our immediate (with the backing of other owners and the Ministry of Forestry) playground. We built an extension (pictured) a few years back which serves as an overflow area for guides as well as our dog medical area (as you can see from the shelves of medication in the background) and the area in which we first welcome multiday safari clients. In the area immediately around the main house we have our main workshop, dog kitchen, gear room and wood shed. The workshop is pretty heavily used, year-round.

The farm itself is situated c. 200m from the main farmhouse and dog kitchen so that, if there is an occasional escape, the dogs wouldn't run straight onto the main road. The walk to and from the farm and farmhouse is illuminated in winter (the cable was dug in, by hand) and is full of pretty wild flower colours at other times of year. We also have a bridge c. half way down which was put in, by hand. On route to the farm, there are sled-dog crossing points which are clearly marked with signboards.

There is still one thing to pass on route to the farm - our pretty unique GEE-HAW training area (although unfortunately the only video we have of that area, doesn't actually star a dog!).

Once at the farm itself, there are large gates with flaps on the bottom (to deal with the changing levels of snow) which keep wild animals like reindeer, bear and wolves out and the dogs, in. And, just inside these, you can see trails leading off on either side of our main through-road, to the puppy agility course and nature trail. The cage area comes next, where all of the girls, pups and dogs with collar sores are housed in shared kennels. Only the pups have a unique kennel - the Puppy Hilton, pictured. Behind the cages are running fences with the dual purpose of being the retirement areas for the older dogs and the training areas for the yonger ones.

In the main farm area, dogs live on chains which have 360 degree motion potential. We have deliberately kept a lot of trees within the circles so that there are shady areas where the dogs can hide from the sun in the summer and flat kennel roofs where they can sunbathe in Spring when the sun comes back for the first time after the polar night.

At the far end of the enfenced farm, is our kota area. There, we have both a fabric teepee and a wooden kota as well as numerous signboards about huskies in general, how we look after the health and welfare of the dogs, how we have baselined our environmental imact and the standard targets we work at and towards. We have open fireplaces in addition to the fireplaces in both kotas, a toilet and 'male pee area' and log shed. Each winter we build a new igloo in this area so that the kids visiting us have somewhere to explore in addition to sledding on our small toboggan hill.

We also have a variety of cabins which we utilise on our safaris and also rent out through the year. We are going to put up more images of these here soon.