HERE’S the challenge. How do you get over a fear of dogs which has stricken you since childhood?

Simple – travel a couple of thousands miles to the Arctic Circle to spend a week dog sledding while raising money for a canine charity!

Maya Yamashita, a graduate planner in Old Town, has been scared of dogs since she was a young girl.

“I was about ten when a friend of a friend’s dog jumped on me from behind, blindfolded me with its paws and left me with a bloodshot eye,” explained Maya, 29, from Southampton Street.

“Also, one of the neighbourhood dogs once bit my father when the gates to the garden where he was being kept were left open by accident. This particular dog I was scared of anyway. He would be barking at us every time we walked past when the gates were closed.

“Since then, I had only been okay with the dogs belonging to people I knew. “I had always stayed away of other dogs out of fear of being jumped on or bitten.”

So it was last year when Alex Pappin, who was working as a solicitor in Old Town at the time, suggested tackling the Dog Sledding Arctic Challenge in Norway. The base for the trip was Alta, some 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle and the prelude to an expedition which would take five days with a team of five dogs tackling some of the harshest winter conditions. The dogs were a mixture of Alaskan and Greenland huskies.

“I thought Alex was joking when he suggested I do it,” admitted Maya.

“But then I thought about the fact it could help me get over my fear of dogs and decided to go for it.”

In addition, Maya would be raising around £3,300 for the Dogs Trust, a charity which helps to re-home stray and abandoned dogs.

Maya and Alex were joined by eight other participants who were lent Arctic suits, boots, a hat and big brown gloves made out of reindeer skin. Each person had five dogs which they had to take care of, and twice a day the group would take it in turns to feed and clear up after the huskies.

The journey itself started in Gargia, which is a 15 minute drive from Alta. For the first two days, Maya and the team found themselves sledding uphill which helped teach control of the sled by putting their bodyweight on the side of the ski that was higher when turning corners.

“We also learned how to fall off!” added Maya. “One thing which was drummed into us when falling was to never let go of the sled. “This is exactly what I didn’t do at the beginning of the third day when we were going up a hill which had a series of lakes and rivers that created a hard slippery surface when frozen. To add to this, there was also a mild blizzard. “The dogs were running with immense enthusiasm, and as we turned to the right, I accidently put my weight on the wrong side of the sled and ended up flying onto my side with the sled. “Thankfully the anchor flew off my sled and embedded itself into the soft snow on the side of our trail of hard ice and stopped the dogs from running off.” Apart from the anchor, which was a curved piece of metal which had a sharp point to dig into the snow, there were also two brakes attached to the sleds. One was a piece of metal on a spring with two blunt points which was good to use in soft snow.

The other was a rubber pad better for hard, flat surfaces such as Tarmac and ice. “It was fast and terrifying, but very exciting at the same time.” On one of the evening stopovers, Maya and the team stayed in a lodge with no electricity or water, using a gas stove to cook on. For water they had to drill a hole in the snow to access a lake which was buried beneath the snow. Maya said: “The scenery was absolutely stunning with snow everywhere. Initially what we thought were fields that we were crossing were actually lakes and streams.

“They were perfect conditions to see the Northern Lights, a massive green streak across that sky that very slowly changed into a beautiful curve.”

Everyone on the team got used to taking a tumble from their sled as their skills were well and truly put to the test. Every day, they put in three to four hours’ sledding covering up to 40km a day.

The dog sledding leader, Arne, was so impressed with their skills that rather taking an easy ride home, he encouraged them to sled back to Gargia.

“The plan on the fifth day was to visit an ice hotel before untying the dogs, putting the dogs into the transporter and heading back to Gargia. “However Arne decided he was very happy with the skills that we had all developed and instead we would go straight back to Gargia, put the dogs ‘to bed’ before heading to the ice hotel. “The owner of the lodge in Gargia came over on his ski-doo to help Arne plan the journey back.

There was a lot of chat in Norwegian accompanied by hand movements signaling what we interpreted as hills!

“It was the most challenging but the most exciting day of all five. We went up a few steep hills, but also charged down them. Some of the routes were simply regular forest paths, but also streams and waterfalls, two of which came one very shortly after the other – that was scary!”

So apart from sampling an Arctic experience of a lifetime, and raising money for the Dogs Trust, did the week in Norway cure Maya’s canine phobia?

She admitted that it was difficult to harness the dogs.

“They would pull away from you with such force and then they would bite the ropes which initially confused and almost upset me.

“However, over the next few days I learnt how to interact and understand the huskies.

“Also, I was surrounded by dog lovers and owners who helped me to understand dog behaviour and ways of dealing with them.

“I was the only person who had a bit of a problem with the dogs, but the fourth day I found myself sitting in the snow with them very comfortably – that’s when they weren’t trying to lick me!

“All in all, it was more physically and mentally grueling than we all though it would be, so the sense of achievement was even greater.

“Now back in Swindon, I feel a lot more confident about how to handle dogs.”

Maya was raising money for the Dogs Trust (www.dogstrust.org.uk) and for more details contact www.justgiving.com/mayayamashita.