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a one-piece jumpsuit. not tougn, reminiscent ot beet, I suppose, and not In me least bit fatty. I had a feeling that it was prepared in condensed milk, but this close to the Russian border (only a few miles away) it was probably the most authentic reindeer stroganoff I will ever have. John spoke perfect English. "I'm going to take your things ahead by snowmobile," he said. "And you will follow on your reindeer. Dopani is your guide. He speaks only Finnish and Sami, so I will explain. For a time he will keep your reindeer tied to his. Then, at a certain point, he will untie the ropes and you will each drive your own reindeer and sleigh. Don't worry: you only have to remember that, while the reindeer are half wild and you should keep your distance from their antlers, they have never hurt anyone or done any thing yet. " We stepped outside to show him the things he was going to take ahead to the wilderness cabin. John seemed a bit astonished, but after some struggling, managed to load our possessions onto the giant sled the snowmobile would pull. Bridget had departed, leaving behind the sleeping bags and polar suits, wh ich we climbed into. Fortunately they were large, because otherwise it would have been difficult to get them over our long underwear, polar fleece pants and tops, insulated pants, sweaters, down coats, mittens and hats. Then we waddled behind John up the hill to the fenced area where Dopani, the Sami reindeer guide, was either chasing or running from a number of reindeer in a pen. Dopani was tin� dressed in a fur hat and After he caught a reindeer he hooked it into a harness and onto a hand-hewn wooden sleigh. He gazed at us balefully before grabbing the other reindeer and hooking them up to two other sleighs. Then he tied all three sleighs togeth er, one behind the next. The lead reifldeer was brown with two big antlers; the second was brown and missing one antler; and the third, the littlest, was white with brown spots. Dopani was the equivalent of an Arctic cowboy. I noticed that even though the reindeer were no bigger than small donkeys or large dogs, he kept a respectful distance from them and their huge and multi-pronged antlers. "These reindeer are half wild," John explained. "For seven months a year they run with the herd. During the winter they pull the sle�hs. It takes years to train them and they can't be trained until they are four or five years old. First, Dopani will drive the with yours behind. When he unties you, if your reindeer decides to turn a foot on the ground as a brake. Hold on to the rope, and if you can, get e reindeer's head. But don't worry. This has never happened." ohn hopped onto his snowmobile and revved the engine, ready to zoom off derness-only since the sleigh his snowmobile was pulling was so laden with he actually chugged off slowly. sat on our sleighs, almost reclining, and Dopani gently slapped the lead the rope to start him up. The landscape was beautiful, strange and snowc d the light was eerie, a curious deathly blue, as if it were about to snow. We weren't moving very quickly. After we had gone about a hundred yards my reindeer began to pant, his tongue hanging out like a dog's. He turned around and gave me an evil look, and I had the feeling he was cursing me. I figured he was out of shape. It didn't seem like there were too many people coming up here to get pulled by reindeer. Paige and I yelled back and forth to one another, laughing. Even though we couldn't move in our layers of Arctic gear, we were toasty warm. What did it matter that it wasn't terribly cold? Twenty-four hours earlier I had been in New York City. No one else I knew would leave behind a baby, two dogs and a nanny who had fa llen down the stairs only moments before my departure-which left her unable to move, possibly with a bro ken coccyx-in order to go off on a reindeer trip 450 miles north of the Arctic Circle in the dead of winter. We rode along placidly for several hours. Thanks to my new sports gear, it was the first time in my life that I had been outdoors in winter without feeling the cold, even , if I did feel a bit like a trussed pig. But I knew that in Arctic temperatures a person's extremities could freeze and drop off without the person even noticing. It was a very warm day, some kind of January thaw, and the trail wasn't packed, so the going was slow. After a while Paige's reindeer balked and the whole train stopped. "What's he doing?" Paige called. "Oh, he has to pee'" Dopani turned around. "Tea?" he said. "Tea?" said Paige. "I think he thought that when you said 'pee' you were asking for tea," I said. "Tea," Dopani repeated. He opened a Thermos and poured hot tea. I won- dered when we were ever going to get to drive our own reindeer. It didn't seem very dif ficult. The feeling reminded me of wanting to steer my own camel on camel expeditions where the camel owner didn't trust me enough to untie my camel. "What's my reindeer called?" Paige asked. Dopani appeared to understand. "Bela." "And mine?" "Waluk." We set off again. It was beginning to get gloomy. Abruptly, just when I was giving up hope that I was going to get to own reindeer, Dopani stopped and handed Paige her rope. Then he gave Waluk's rope to me. He didn't say anything-well, he couldn't communicate in English-but jiggling the rope against his reindeer's side, he set off down the trail at a gallop and disappeared from sight. My reindeer walked along slowly in front of Paige's. "Can't you make him go faster?" Paige called. "You were the one who said the poor reindeer was panting because he was so tired," I said. continued page 131