Husky sledding in Saariselkä

6 min read Updated October 2026 Compare all tours

Compared with the long list of snowmobile and aurora tours around Saariselkä, the husky offer is thin. On the tour pages you find a self-drive safari on a 10 km track, a guided walk with a husky that involves no sled at all, and a shorter ride that doubles as a search for the northern lights. Multi-day mushing trips do not appear among the tours bookable here.

The dogs do not live in the village itself. Arctic Timetravels drives guests about an hour by van to its starting point at Veskoniemi and collects them from hotels in Saariselkä or Ivalo, within 15 km of either centre. Ilonka keeps its huskies at a farm near Ivalo, and the walk starts there. Star Arctic picks up from five listed hotels, hands out clothing at the Star Arctic Hotel reception and then moves on to its own wilderness centre.

Driving the sled yourself

The 10 km safari is the main self-drive option. Two people share each sled, and the ride is split so that each of you steers for half of it and sits for the other half. If one person would rather not drive, the other can stay on the runners for the whole loop. Children younger than 12 always ride as passengers, and teenagers may drive from 16. The operator excludes children under 4 and people over 70.

On the sled itself you spend roughly 40 to 45 minutes, and the tour page gives the two figures in different places. With the safety briefing, a visit to the kennel and warm drinks in a kota, the programme at the kennel lasts about two hours, and the van adds another hour each way. Plan the whole tour as a half day. Only the person sitting can take photos while the team is running, so swap the phone at the halfway point.

Guests with recent reviews describe a long drive out and changing into the overalls outdoors. When the weather was poor in March 2026, the loop was shortened to about three miles.

A walk with a husky instead of a sled

Ilonka runs a different kind of tour. Each adult walks with one harnessed husky clipped to a belt, along forest paths near the farm. You pick an easy walk of about 30 minutes or a medium one of 60 to 75 minutes, and the whole visit takes 1 to 1.5 or 2 to 2.5 hours, with a drink and a treat included. Groups are capped at six, and the walk runs in every season, so it also works before the snow arrives.

The limits are clear on the page. Children under 8 cannot join, and older children usually walk without a dog of their own. You bring comfortable shoes and clothes; the farm lends the belt, the harness and a head torch when it is dark. The operator warns that the French version of its page wrongly calls this a sled ride.

No pickup is listed, so sort out your transport before you book. One guest writes that public buses to the farm are few.

Huskies after dark

The third option comes from Star Arctic. Two people share a sled for roughly 8 km, one adult drives, and you may change drivers along the way. A guide follows on a snowmobile. The guided part takes about an hour and a half, the whole evening about three hours, and you warm up with a drink in a tipi. The minimum age is 11, and the operator asks that you be fit enough to handle the sled. Read the liability terms before booking, because the tour page lists an excess per accident for damage to the dogs or the sled.

The aurora is a bonus here, not the point. The operator says you see it if you are lucky. The regional tourist office gives September to April as the aurora season, with sightings whenever the sky is dark and clear. According to the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the best viewing time is the hours either side of midnight. For a longer search with photos, see our page on northern lights tours.

Huskies and Sámi culture

The whole municipality of Inari, with Ivalo and Saariselkä, lies in the Sámi homeland, so it is easy to assume that dog teams belong to local tradition. The Sámi Parliament in Finland says they do not: its guidelines for tourism describe dog sledding as a tradition borrowed from another culture and brought to Lapland’s tourism scene in the 1980s. A husky tour here is a tourism activity rather than part of Sámi heritage. The same guidelines ask that reindeer herds are never approached without the owner’s permission, by dog sled or otherwise. Our page on reindeer and Sámi culture covers tours run with herding families.

Clothes and cold

The 10 km safari hands out warm overalls, boots and gloves at the farm, and the aurora ride lends thermal overalls, boots and gloves as well. For the walk you wear your own clothes. Either way, the layers underneath are yours. The regional tourist office recommends merino wool or synthetic fabric next to the skin, no cotton, a fleece or wool layer in the middle and a windproof shell, and points out that mittens keep hands warmer than gloves.

Weather records from the Finnish Meteorological Institute give a January average of roughly −12 °C in Saariselkä over 1991 to 2020, and the tourist office notes that it can fall below −30 °C. Our guide on what to wear in Saariselkä has the full packing list.

When to go

Real winter in northern Lapland usually starts in November. Weather data from the village show a closed snow cover in every winter from about 1 December to mid-April over 1991 to 2020, with the deepest snow in late March or early April. Between 6 December 2026 and 6 January 2027 the sun does not rise at all; on 21 December there are about five hours of twilight, from 09:36 to 14:41. By 1 March the sun is up from 07:33 to 17:14, and the regional tourist office describes March and April as months of deep snow and long days.

A husky tour fits easily next to other plans. The safari from Veskoniemi takes most of a morning or afternoon, the walk at Ilonka leaves the rest of the day free, and the evening ride can follow a day on the snowmobile. Ivalo airport is about 25 km from Saariselkä, so the walk near Ivalo can also fill a gap on your arrival or departure day.