Best husky tour in Tornio: one pick for each kind of visitor
Illustration photo: a husky team in the mountains of Andorra, not near Tornio.
The short answer
First ride and happy to sit: the private seated ride on the Swedish side. Want to drive: its two-and-a-half-hour tour with one guide per sled, or the four-hour version if you want to be taught properly. No winter gear and no wish to organise anything: the self-drive ride from Kemi. A group on a budget with its own warm clothes: the private safari in Keminmaa. Keen cyclists: the fat-bike tour behind a husky.
Six husky tours are within reach of a bed in Tornio: four at a kennel on the Swedish side of the river, one out of Kemi and one in Keminmaa. Each suits a different person, so this page picks by reader.
If it is your first time and you want to watch
Book the seated ride on the Swedish side. You sit in a big sled while the musher drives, it is private, and it ends with time among the dogs and a home-cooked meal.1 It is the calmest way to find out whether you like this.
If you want to drive
The same kennel’s two-and-a-half-hour tour gives each guest a team and a guide of their own on the sled. If you want to be taught rather than supervised, its four-hour tour starts you as a passenger and ends with you driving, and is built for two.2
If you cycle
The kennel also runs a two-hour ride on a fat bike with a husky pulling in front, for riders of fifteen and over who already have cycling experience and can handle uneven ground.3 It is the least expensive tour it sells.
If you want everything handled
The ride out of Kemi lends a full winter outfit, drives you to the kennel and gives you five kilometres to steer yourselves, two to a sled.4 Nothing to pack, and the price is in euros.
If your group has warm gear and a budget
The private safari at the lodge in Keminmaa costs the least per head and keeps the dogs to your group, but its listing gives neither a trail length nor any clothing, so it rewards a party that can dress itself.
Four of them are set out side by side on husky safari in Tornio, and the two Kemi-area rides in more depth on husky safari in Kemi.
Questions people ask
One of us wants to drive and the other would rather sit. Which tour works?
The four-hour tour on the Swedish side does both for both of you: everyone rides as a passenger first and then drives. On the Kemi ride two people share one sled and take turns at the runners, so a reluctant partner can drive as little as they like. The two-and-a-half-hour Swedish tour is the one that does not suit this pair, since every guest there drives.
Do any of these include a meal?
The Swedish kennel's tours include home-cooked food: lunch on the daytime rides, and a snack on the evening version of the seated ride. The Kemi ride includes a hot drink, and the Keminmaa safari coffee or tea. If a husky morning is going to be your lunch as well, that difference is worth counting before you compare prices.
On which days does the Kemi company run its kennel trip?
Its own website lists the kennel trip on Wednesday to Sunday, departing at 8.45 and 14.45, which leaves Monday and Tuesday out. The booking platform shows the availability for the two-and-a-half-hour ride date by date, so check the day you want there before planning the drive from Tornio around it.