THE DOG SLED DRIVER Ane Sofie Lauritzen, owner of Arctic Living Ilulissat
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Sled dogs are Ane Sofie Lauritzen’s passion. She runs the sled dog centre and looks after the thirty-one dogs together with her husband. They also both take tourists out sledding.
The thirty-one sled dogs in the dog enclosure in between Ilulissat town and the Icefjord Centre are howling and barking with excitement: they are working dogs, and they are about to go to work. A group of tourists stands ready to try a ride on a dog sled. Ane Sofie Lauritzen sticks her head out of one of the log-cabin windows and shouts, ‘Yes, yes, little piggies,’ in Green landic. And laughs loudly as she tries to call them to order. One of the dogs is called Hilux, named after Ane Sofie’s first car. There is also a Trump and a Putin. The sled dog centre, the log cabin and the thirty-one dogs are her passion. She runs the place together with her husband, Flemming. He is Danish, and in addition to dog sledding he also works as a policeman. ‘Visitors who come to Ilulissat might feel that there are a lot of sled dogs here. But in fact, their number has dropped drastically in recent years, from 3,000 to around 2,000. The snowmobile has taken over many of the tasks from the dog sleds. So our project is
