Our musher sees the big blue puddle to the left of the ice before our dogs do. “Ili, ili, ili,” he yells, cracking his whip behind the dozen-strong pack. “Right, right, right.” He leans to the side, trying to avert disaster, as other bright-eyed huskies pulling sleds with two to four passengers whizz past, cantering on furry paws towards a vast white expanse flanked by mountains and at one end, a bulging crystalline glacier.

Then it’s too late; we’re bogged. Laughing, the two of us clamber off our skin-covered qamutiik (wooden sled) as our rebel canines splash happily, their noses moist, their tails bushy curlicues. A few beats later and we’re back on the solid ice of the fjord at Kulusuk on the remote south-east Greenland coast, our hair blowing back as we gather pace, the sled’s runners sliding through the freeze, the spring sunshine kaleidoscoping patterns off the Arctic still-life glistening all around us.