Skrevet av: Olav Hatlen/Stefan Sanne
Dato: 10.03.2005 12:25
Ben Livesey is not like the ordinary english man. He dislikes football and loves snow and ice. Now he is the second Englishman in the history of Finnmarksløpet to finish the world's northernmost sled dog race with a team of dogs he has bred and trained himself. He follows in the footsteps of Jason De Carteret, who finished the race before, but not with his own dogs.
Ben Livesey has been living in Norway for seven years already, but comes originally from Preston in the north of England. With his sense for quality he chose to settle at the beautiful Jøkelfjord in Troms, North Norway. On a daily basis he is working with children who are having drug problems - if he is not standing on a dog sled that is.
The 500 km long Finnmarksløpet leads through the arctic environment of the widespread and open Finnmarksvidda. You hardly find people up here, but reindeers can be found at one place or another. The temperature is likely to go beneath -30 degrees Celsius.
When Ben tried for the first time he did not fully comprehend what he was signing up for; -I was naive and the dogs were too badly trained. As was I. After 350km it was just not possible anymore and I had to give up the race. Of course it was disappointing, but you learn the world of a mistake like that.
Ben explains that this years race started fantastic; - The dogs ran over the vidda, happy and easy, and I was in top shape as well. But after a couple of hundred kilometers I started to feel the strain. I understand now, in the aftermath, that I still rested too short at the checkpoints. After another 100km I started thinking I might not be able to finish this year either, but I worked and worked and so did the dogs and after almost three days out on the vidda I was crossing the finish line.
Ben was only sleeping for something like three hours during these days. The combination of little sleep and tough physical work is extremely tiring also for the human.
The english musher misses his home country. In Jøkkelfjord he has everything the way he wants to. However, he still has a lot of "Englishman" inside him. Therefore he dreams about cheese and tea; - The norwegian cheese does not taste anything. And tea is something the people here have definetely not yet understood , he concludes smiling.