Get ready, because they are!

With the first in a series of noise generators recorded in Finland during the winter of 2015, we are invited on a dog sled ride in the white wilderness of Lapland. These dogs belong to Tinja Myllykangas, a young woman locally known as The Dog Whisperer. Tinja traded city life to a wilderness hut, living without electricity nor running water in a remote place above the Polar Circle. She shares a relationship with her dogs like best friends, and you can feel that chemistry upon arriving at Siperia Laponica, their home on the side of a lake.

Tinja's dogs sincerely love sled rides. When she arrives with their harnesses, the full pack of 85 dogs — many of which Tinja rescued — begins barking for her attention, each begging to be picked and strapped into the sled. Only a few are selected. The noise the lucky ones make while eagerly awaiting departure is incredible! Their excitement pauses only once the sled begins moving. If the musher — the person who rides the sled — ever chooses to stop the sled later on, dogs will rapidly become impatient again. They always want to keep going, and will soon start barking as if to say, "Let's go! Let's go!"

We have departed. The barking of the dogs left at the camp disappears in the distance, and the world of sound changes. Wrapped in a perfect silence, we can now listen to our glide in the snow and the dogs' breath as they pull our sled. If we keep our ears open, we will hear the musher's breath too. Dog sledding is a physical experience. Uphill, the musher will often run after the sled to help the dogs out. The musher is a team member like the dogs — a part of that incredible, organic machine, that chugs like a steam-powered engine.

Behind-the-scene photos are available here.

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