Hi Hendrik!
I'm still so happy every time I think about that wonderful week at and around your camp!! Sure, our group was the burner, but only because of the surroundings could we have such a great time together!
Many thanks to you and the wonderful team!!
— Okihopp, Alexandra
Good morning Hendrik, good morning Voice of Nature team,
I want to thank you for the fantastic week with you. I had not expected so many impressions and experiences in a single week.
I took away a lot from this week and learned how beautiful nature and working (albeit in a pared-down way) with the dogs and the people can be.
The experience that you can live with less and should focus on what is essential.
Many thanks again for the great support by you and your team.
Warm regards from Cologne,
— Wolfgang
Dear Hendrik,
we are back home already.
The beautiful week with you went by far too quickly and will always stay with us! For me, a dream I had nurtured for decades came true!
We would like to thank you all once again very, very warmly — in particular Svea and Dominik!
Heartfelt thanks and warm regards,
— Kristina
Hello Hendrik,
I'm back in working life by now and I think fondly of the days in Sweden. In my free time I am devouring your book. Everyone I tell about my trip is fascinated.
With a bit of distance I want to confirm again that you are running your Voice of Nature totally the right way. I spend a lot of time in the mountains in the summer, and I think it is right and important that, in today's world, we should step outside our comfort zone from time to time.
Many people simply no longer realise how well off we actually are — "going without" has become a foreign concept for many.
In truth, nature gives us everything we need — that was confirmed once again for me in Sweden.
Best wishes to your great team and your wonderful dogs, and a special greeting to my friend Tok.
I would like to come back next winter, we'll see.
— Warm regards, Thomas
Dear Hendrik,
sadly our days are already over and we are on our way to Oslo.
It was a fantastic experience that we were allowed to live through with you and the super team you have!
Many thanks for this unique experience, which we will very, very gladly recommend!
Warm regards — and we wish you a successful race!
— Nathalie and Michael
Hello Hendrik,
first I wanted to thank you for the great experience with you this week. They were unforgettable moments — a truly wonderful and positive adventure! It was exhausting but incredibly fun!
I would have liked to keep going, perhaps another time. I'll have to check your website.
To you and the whole team: we wish you a lovely Christmas season and all the best!
— Dirk & Nicola
Dear Hendrik,
by now "civilisation in Switzerland" has us back, and we would like to take the opportunity to thank you and your team very warmly for the unforgettable days at your lodge.
It truly was a journey through time, and from our arrival we had to come to terms with getting by with just the basics of life. That was briefly challenging but also "healing", and it confirms that happiness and inner calm are not driven by status symbols or consumption.
Special thanks go to the two guides Florian and his partner, as well as Dominik. Their calm demeanour took away our initial uncertainty and turned the days into a full success. The women's power in the kitchen during the preparation of the delicious dinners (with properly cut cucumbers), and the helping hands with the dogs — they should not go unmentioned. You simply have a super team at the lodge!!
For the trust you placed in us "newbies" by letting us drive and experience your dogs, we would also like to say heartfelt thanks. It only remains for us to wish you and your team further success — and to hope that despite the advertising we are now doing for your lodge in our circle of friends, we will again find a spot with you one day.
Warm greetings also to the furry friends Pamuya/Kolak/Iparak as well as Quanta/Simba/Wohali — please give them a good scratch at the next opportunity.
All the best to you and your family, to the human team of the lodge, and of course to the dogs.
— René & Annett
Dear Hendrik,
Thanks again for the beautiful experience with the dogs — or rather wolves :) — and also for giving me a great team for the mountain trip, so that even uphill I still had to brake every now and then… :) even though Tapio, your future lead dog, made it a game to test how well I could avoid the trees.
I've already read your book and I saw myself in it a little bit… Even if temperature-wise you do exactly the opposite of what I do in the Maldives with my fish, I can very much relate to certain thoughts and emotions. Sometimes also the herd behaviour, with which I could never quite identify, and yet you still somehow want to belong. After a very exhausting time these last two years, with successes and setbacks, this week has done me a lot of good and I have found myself again a bit. And yes, the basic trust that everything will be fine — don't forget that… :)
It would be nice if we could stay in touch… I wish you a lovely evening, and please give Venla a smooch on the snout from me next time you see her ;)
Warm regards,
— Leila
Dear Hendrik,
thank you again very, very much for the unforgettable days with your great team and of course your wonderful animals. At dinner today we talked about the tour at length and wondered what our choice of dogs might say about our characters and about the dogs' characters.
In particular because, according to Madita, the teams of Katharina (Reha, Quinitou, Ohja) and me, Christian (Ivik, Navajo, Umio), were so different, and you had swapped the team assignment between us. Was there a specific reason for that? In any case, we're all the more looking forward to learning about emotional leadership. Maybe we'll see each other again sometime in Hamburg.
Best regards and have a lovely rest of winter,
— Katharina & Christian
Hello Hendrik,
it's been a little over a week since our holiday with you and I could let the experiences settle. In the first few days, I have to admit, I had wished for a bit more comfort. ;-) When the tour ended on Friday, I had to look back and realise that everything, even without the comfort I had missed earlier, was an absolutely perfect experience. The dogs, the tours, the base camp, your team (Adrian in particular) and the camps gave me an incomparable and wonderful adventure that I will remember forever. A four-week holiday in the Maldives could not have been more restful! Thank you very much to you, your team, and your dogs for that! Please cuddle your dogs for me, especially Quillag and Quanah, who have grown very close to my heart. ;-)
I wish you, your team and your dogs all the best!
Warm regards,
— Guido
Dear Hendrik,
by now almost a month has gone by since our time with you. Of course, barely had we opened the front door again than we were back in our normal life. Our house in Berlin did, however, greet us with an icy 6 degrees — admittedly above zero — and we still felt so hardened and tempered, also by the week following the sled dog tour that we spent in enchanted Lillehammer skiing, ice-skating and so on in quite hefty minus temperatures. So the cold at home couldn't touch us and actually felt good. After all, you taught us how to keep warm best. And we learned so much more: about your wonderful dogs, your great team, you and your life in extreme situations, great stories — about Sweden, Switzerland and other countries people talked about, about our own life and what we expect from it, about our friends.
Meanwhile I've pulled out your book again, which I had read through quickly after the fair in Berlin. But now, after watching you in action, your dealings with people, nature and environment, and above all with your dogs and with yourself, reading it I saw everything through very different eyes — now that I had briefly been in such a situation myself. In principle we were not very surprised at how the wonderful 4 days unfolded — we had imagined it similarly. No electricity, no running water, just nature all around, no mobile reception — we've experienced and enjoyed that before. What did surprise me was the uncontainable strength, energy, loyalty and friendliness of the dogs, and on the other hand their wildness. I had the utmost respect for them, and they managed to take me to my physical limits. Some parts were a real challenge. It helped me a lot that I had a basic trust in you and your people from the very beginning, and that I could rely on our group when I needed help and could barely hold the dog any longer. I was very impressed by how, through your way of being, you somehow got us to simply do everything that needed doing. For example, during almost the whole first night I could hardly sleep because I kept imagining going into the dog pen, grabbing a dog, and sliding down the embankment with it through the deep snow. At first I thought: I will never go into the pen! I won't manage to get the dog to the sled. In the end a woman from our group helped me when I was on the ground… "just never let go of the dog!!!"
By now we have entered the phase of transfiguration; tomorrow we're meeting a few friends — Igor and Kathrin will be there too — and there will certainly be lots of talk about this unique experience. Some of the people we tell about it are in awe of us and think we are very brave — they would never do something like that. Others think we're crazy and wonder why we spend so much money for so little luxury. Yet we have once again experienced what true luxury consists of: having time, being able to have such experiences, having people who are with you, being surrounded by unspoilt nature, human warmth, good food and togetherness…
Everyday life catches up with you right away, of course, but I catch myself sitting in the commuter train and daydreaming back to Sweden and Norway — and it gives me a lot of positive energy. We want you to know that we were, and still are, very enthusiastic; that we deeply value this experience and that it was a time that did something to us and that we would not want to miss.
So once again, thank you very much — and please pass on the praise to your team, and give all 66 dogs a big hug from us. They have become very dear to us.
All my love and best wishes from a somewhat snowy Berlin,
— Susanne and Frank
(Kathrin and Igor will certainly join in with my words.)