AdventurHer Travel: Dogsledding in Ely Minnesota

Me in early March: looking for a fun project to keep me occupied for the cold winter months.

Me a few weeks later: bouncing off trees and hanging on for dear life on the back of a dogsled in Northern Minnesota.

How did this come to be? Let me tell you the story.

I reached out to an old Champlain College friend when I heard she had started an adventure travel company, both to catch up and to see if she was in any need of a photographer for her upcoming trips. She quickly asked, “what do you have planned 3 weeks from now?”

And that’s how I found myself on a flight to Minneapolis 3 weeks later to document AdventuHER’s dogsledding trip up in Ely, MN.

Not only were we among good people at Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge, not to mention amazing views while sledding across one of the thousands of frozen lakes they have in MN, but all the women on the trip were so cool to meet and spend time with. AdventurHER specializes in getting women outdoors, and pushing them to try things that wouldn’t normally do. I can say first hand that I never would have even thought to try dogsledding before this trip, but now I‘m hooked. I hear there are a couple of dogsledding groups in VT…

Pleas enjoy some of my favorites moments from our time mushing across frozen lakes and melting beaver ponds.

Though our time was short, we made it count. We made a priority of going on night hikes after a day of dogsledding to try and find some Northern Lights. We failed, but I did get to snag some fun portraits under the full moon.

To all my ladies, thanks for being awesome. And a major thank you to Adventuher Travel for making the magic happen.

Bonus photo: one morning while we were getting the dogs ready, a neighbor’s dog came trucking through with an entire deer leg in his mouth. I was able to snag a photo of him as he was trotting away and taunting the sled dogs. WILD STUFF.