Finally Pingo has arrived Norway mainland! The original intention was that Monica, Annelills mother was going to 'own' her and take care of her - and she did, very well!! However, to 'cultivate' a one year old polar dog that know no other logic in life than 'how to survive in a dog-yard', needs a lot of work and time and determination.

At the time Annelill and I were living on Roverud, a small village about 110 km north of Oslo, close to the Swedish border. The climate there is good for such a dog, cold as a fridge in the winter (but a little too warm in the summer...). Monica soon renamed Pingo to Pinga as she has no what so ever realtions to arctic geographic phenomenas but a clear vision of wich endings female names should have.

Bjørge, Monicas husband, built a large dog yard with two meter fences. She also got a long line. We happend to live just next door so Pinga became just as much ours.

In the beginning Pinga was quite frustrated with the new life, cut off from her pack and in a totally new environment. She quite often managed to escape, venturing into the great woods in the area. Every time, some nice people finally called us telling where we could pick her up (once almost 25 km from home). She also tested her instincts on the neighbours farm - proudly she came home with a hen in her mouth one day. Now we know what a hen costs...

To be continued...

One of the picture galleries is called 'Pinga from Svalbard'. This is the short story about her and about how she ended up together with us.

The winter 2003 my girlfriend Annelill and I was working on Svalbard, the Arctic archipelago of Norway. I was taking tourists on snowmobile safaries and ice caving in the glaciers and Annlill was feeding and caring for 80 alaskan huskies in a professional sled dog company.

Amongst all these extreme performers of sled dogs some are considered 'not usable' for different reasons. In Pingas case, she had too much hair, specially between the toes on the paws and she was also a bit scatterbrained according to the boss dog handler. On the other hand she always liked to be touched and she communicated it by rolling around on her back ready for some scratching and hugging whenever there were people around. This made her stick a bit out in the mass of all the eighty dogs. She is also completely white - though not exactly, after spending her first year only 500 meters from one of Svalbards coal mines.

With a little bit of negotiations with the company we convinced them to (without compensation) to leave Pingo to us (yes - her original name was Pingo after a geophysical phenomenon in arctic regions; Pingos - a bulb of ice formed of an influx of water from below...).

When it was clear that she had all the vaccinations against rabies (it's rabies on Svalbard due to some mice that the russians imported in the fifties) she could start traveling down south to Norway mainland. Annelill and I was long gone south so our friend Henrik brought her along. Her first flight must have been a nightmare for her as she was pretty far out as she arrived at Oslo airport. She threw up in the car going home - pizza from kroa, her first and only pizza meal and she couldn't hold on to it - what a pity..

Part 2 is coming soon...

Just put in some pictures from a skiing trip I had together with my friends; Geir, Torbjørn and Pinga a week ago! We had wonderful weather and slept two nights in tent. The trip went from Rostadalen, Isdalen, Gappo hut, Pältsa hut, Moska hut and down Rostaddalen again. Distance all together on skis was about 65 kilometers - the conditions was very good and mostly we could ski with Swix Blue Extra on the sole. Skiing down the last bit was fun, I had a pulka behind me and down the turns and into the woods became quite hazardous, but it went well after all!!

nå har jeg akkurat pratet med jannicke på skype. hun er i singapore og har det fint. karl: der er på tide du får deg skype sånn at du også kan prate og ikke bare msn'e med henne!!!

iallefall så er det fristende å ta seg en tur til sør-øst asia etter alt jeg hører derfra!! jeg dit snart!