From Entrepreneur to Musher: A Radical Change of Lifestyle
An unconventional decision led me to one of the happiest times of my life.
In 2019, my entrepreneurial venture in video making was flourishing. I had the freedom to travel extensively and enjoyed 22 weeks of holidays. I had a loving girlfriend, a nice flat in the French Alps, played football with friends twice a week, and was passionate about my work. Everything seemed perfect, except for one major issue: my health.
My gut was telling me this fairytale had a funny taste. Diagnosed with an autoimmune condition, I ignored my health issues as long as I could maintain my lifestyle of work, parties, and travel. However, none of the medicine I was prescribed seemed to work. Under my girlfriend’s urging, I started seeing a therapist. Soon, I looked forward to the sessions. The questions raised unearthed a deep sense of unease. Despite my relative success, I struggled with adjusting to my professional life. I wanted to be done with expectations. Ultimately, I felt like I was trying to live someone else’s dream. This realization was painful at the time, but necessary.
This undercurrent of dissatisfaction and health issues were signs that change was no longer an option. My partner and I started looking for opportunities abroad. My brother was taking on a job as a musher in northern Norway. Working outdoors with dogs sounded just epic to me.
A Change of Everything
Tromsø is an island located north of the Arctic Circle, in the Norwegian Arctic fjords. It is home to about seventy thousand souls. The dog kennel we enrolled in is located on the island of Kvaløya, thirty minutes away from the main city. In the Arctic, the winter is long, with two months of polar nights without any sunshine. The food is bad, the weather ice cold like a freezer. Yet, these issues paled in comparison to the life I discovered.
First of all, dog sledding was a revelation to me. It never crossed my mind before that you could be paid to ride a sled pulled by huskies. Each trip involves harnessing the dogs, attaching them to the sled, welcoming guests, and sledding through the frozen landscape. Gentle hills and birch forests surrounded by fjords and steeper mountains were my new office. How peaceful nature seemed under the white coat of winter! By contrast, the darker shades of the cliffs and seas reminded me of how wild the place is. The skies were majestic. The little daylight of winter was often painted with pastels of golden yellows, soft pinks, and peaceful blues. At night, we would sometimes be sledding under the northern lights. I was experiencing true moments of bliss during work. I had always felt more like a witness than a doer, and with such pristine nature, I knew I was in the right place. Sharing these moments with enthusiastic tourists and loving dogs filled me with satisfaction and gratitude.
A Newfound Simplicity
My job became easy to explain: I feed the dogs, I go sledding, I take care of tourists. Gone were the stressful emails and digital distractions, gone was the futility of my senses. Snowstorms were my new kind of problems, and I loved it. Finally, I could physically act on what mattered, something I discovered essential to my well-being.
Simple had become my new lifestyle, and there was something very noble about that. My energy levels started aligning with the natural demands of the body, the mind lessening its grip on my nerves. I worked quite hard, up to fifty-five hours a week in high season. It wasn’t a walk in the park to be a musher, but I felt energized in the mornings and naturally tired in the evenings. My sovereign right to rest wasn’t baffled by late emails or phone calls. This was invaluable to me.
The biggest positive change I took notice of was more of a subtle one. I felt part of a community. Despite the job being physically demanding, I was very often talking to my colleagues and/or the tourists. I still think it’s pretty draining at times, but I’d rather be fatigued from talking too much — I excel in that matter — than from the sound of my thoughts. The dogs’ pure joy and love helped me interact with people more authentically. There is no shame or judgment in a man-to-dog relationship, only care and authenticity.
Getting Better, Truly
As the deadlines from my digital projects faded away, the underlying tension seemed to resolve itself slowly. My health was getting better; using my body every day gave me nights of sleep I thought were reserved for children. Self-help books lost their appeal once I started enjoying my routines. I wanted to be here and now, not somewhere in a distant future.
My sensitive nature found relief in nature’s minimalism: less noise, more attention; less distraction, more appreciation; fewer people, deeper connections. Conversations became deeper, laughter lighter, and my old ideas of success started melting like the snow in spring. In this very remote place, I had found a community of people who shared the same values as me: nature, movement, and connection. That was the treasure I had unknowingly been looking for.
Nowadays
The silent tormentor of my health might still be on the run, but the clues he left are indisputable. It’s been years now, and from my little cabin in the Norwegian woods, I still enjoy inner peace as the days go by. It’s not a steady ride, but it feels right.
As the famous blogger/author Mark Manson mentioned in his book “Everything is F*cked”, the heart had to be in the driver’s seat, and the mind as a copilot. Not the other way around. I figured becoming solely a seasonal worker wasn’t for me either. I need some structure: a job, a place to call home, a circle of friends. Even though a bit of spontaneity is never far away. Taoist concepts of balance seem to echo in my life. Chaos and order have to be balanced to be rightfully expressed.
Thank you very much for reading my story. Hopefully, it will eventually reach the right person who could benefit from this narrative. My initial intention was to write something that would inspire me to write more. It is my first time writing and sharing online in English.
May you have a peaceful life,
Louis
