Julia Phillips tagged along for the Beringia, a dog sled race across Russia’s easternmost tundra:
Imagine the desert. White dunes, white peaks, white sun, white sky. Imagine a frozen ocean. This was the tundra. I’d never seen such emptiness in my life. I couldn’t stop staring around. It was far below freezing, and in my thermal underwear, fleece layer, double snow suit, double face masks, fur hat, and shearling mittens, my skin prickled as gently as it once did when I sat on summer afternoons in air-conditioned movie theaters.
Let’s be clear—I had no qualifications for such a trip, which took nearly three weeks and covered a mostly unpopulated wilderness. My talents extended only as far as selecting the finest pens at any given drugstore and analyzing the works of 20th-century American fiction writers. I’d never gone camping in the cold. I don’t go to the gym. People in Petropavlovsk, when hearing about my plans to travel with the Beringia, had pursed their lips and come at me with soft voices. "Do you know it’s very difficult?" they asked. "Do you understand?" It seemed to me that I did. I’d never gutted a fish, peeled potatoes with a knife, or ridden on a snowmobile, but soon I’d learn.
(Photo by IloveGreenland)
The Dish 