Working as a handler or guide for Green Dog Svalbard is rewarding work, but can be physically exhausting, especially in the beginning. If you have worked as a dog sled guide before, you will know roughly what you can expect. If you are new to it all, you are either fit or will get fit within the next couple of weeks.
Depending if you start as a handler and maybe later on become a guide or as guide from the beginning (who might also occasionally handle), the job will be quite different. Handlers take care of a lot of the daily hard work in the kennel. They have to do a lot of shit-picking, feeding, and preparing food as well as lots of other maintenance work. They are invaluable for keeping a kennel with ~300 dogs running, and they can make a guide’s life easier if one shows them the respect they deserve for their hard work.
As a guide one is in charge of 30 dogs, ranging from 20 kg Alaskan huskies to 40 kg Greenland dogs and mixes between the two. This involves shitpicking, providing them with heavy buckets/cans of breakfast, snacks and dinner (and water in the summer), taking care of wounds and medications and everything in between. A guide takes care of up to 8 guests and goes out with 4 sleds on their own for trips ranging from a couple of hours to 3 days. The guide takes care of the guests from pick-up in town to drop-off and is in charge of getting them dressed in warm suits/hats/gloves, briefed, and on the sleds. She/he provides them with food/ coffee/ cookies at stops, guides them through the ice cave or over a glacier and drops them back to town in one piece.
Although the dogs are as friendly as can be, they can be a handful when they get excited and one sometimes has to step in if they start a fight. Thus, it can sometimes be a bit of a struggle to get two at a time to the sleds without faceplanting in the snow. But finding your favourite clever/cuddly/silly/chill dog and sledding in the stunning landscape in Bolterdalen and beyond is well worth it.
On Svalbard it is essential that one carries a rifle (and a signal pistol) for polar bear protection when sledding or hiking but hopefully you will never have to use it. There is a shooting range in Longyearbyen, and one is shown how to use the rifle (and keep it in good working order). Going to the range with colleagues for practice is good after-work fun.
Another essential tool is a GPS to navigate in bad visibility (snowstorms or fog) and to help find your way in the polar night (hard to navigate when one can’t make out landmarks).
Accommodation is provided mostly on-site at the kennel (10km outside of Longyearbyen) and can range from basic but cosy cabins (single or shared, with electricity and a kitchen but no running water) to shared cabins with running water. One picks up water for cooking at the kennel, does laundry there, and catches a ride with colleagues to town for a shower at the gym. Longyearbyen provides everything one needs and more, and the community is immensely welcoming. Additionally, there seems to be a different festival/event happening every month.
Karina and Martin are awesome bosses who take good care of their handlers and guides and Svalbard is a stunningly beautiful place. The wildlife is amazing and there is nothing better than to see your first polar bear, Arctic fox, or walrus, and the comically short-legged Svalbard reindeer is both amusing to watch and delicious.
