INUVIK - Standing just five feet tall with delicate Japanese features, it's hard to imagine Sachi Suzuki mushing a team of dogs through the stunted spruce forests around Inuvik in -30 C, but she does.

Animal science major Sachi Suzuki hugs one of the wisest and oldest dogs she's trained at the White Husky Tours kennel, Alaska. - Kira Curtis/NNSL photo

The 26-year-old animal science major specialized in dog training in Japan and feels it has been the experience of a lifetime to come to Inuvik, not only professionally but personally, too. Tomorrow she leaves town.

"There was such great people," she said through a thick Japanese accent and a high-pitched voice, then laughed loudly: "They like parties."

Though she is excited to get home and see her Labrador retriever, Ralph, Suzuki will miss the huskies she has spent so much time with. She will also miss the owners of White Husky Tours, Judi and Olav Falsnes, where she has been volunteering for the past two-and-a-half months, and all her new friends in the community.

Suzuki came to the Arctic looking for experience training huskies, but is leaving with a heap of Inuvik friends she says she will keep in touch with, via Facebook at least.

Her self-consciousness of English made her shy at first, but everyone she would meet was so accommodating and helpful.

"Everybody treats me so good here."

The Arctic is much different from her life back in Tahara, Japan, where the rolling hills of cabbage fields and flowers hold an average winter temperature of 8 C rocketing up to 30 C in the summer months.

"It's countryside there and there are many, many fields of cabbage," she giggled at the imagery of it.

Despite her training, Suzuki was nervous about coming to such an isolated community. Arriving in November, she was heading into days of no sunlight.

But the darkness in Inuvik soon became the most exciting experience she will take back home.

"I will tell my family about polar night," she said, looking out the window of the Arctic Chalet toward the dog kennels.

"First, I thought that I can't do dog sledding, just help Judi," but now she can do it more than two times a week by herself.

Once quite quiet, Suzuki said she is taking with her a boldness she found in Inuvik.

"You know Japanese people are so shy usually," she said, but now she is going to go home and "Woohoo."

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.