New Year’s resolution #132: Go dog sledding and don’t complain about the cold. That’s the brief version of how I ended up in -12° F (-24° C) temperatures, five layers between me and the frostbite, and miles from any hope of hot chocolate. I persuaded (read: conned) my American husband, Curt, and two fellow Aussies, Cassie and Simon, into taking a weekend trip to Maine to experience dogsledding. And, as I would learn later, I scheduled it for one of the coldest weekends of the winter.

We left Boston mid-morning on a January day. After managing to drive south instead of north and turning a two-hour trip into an extended after-dark drive, we arrived in Newry, Maine, where Polly, a petite, ruddy-cheeked guide with Mahoosuc Guide Service, greeted us.

Polly was a seasoned dogsledding professional who had spent 10 years living a subsistence lifestyle in the Yukon Territory. Our overnight accommodation was a rustic farmhouse with an eclectic mixture of Native American artifacts and dogsledding paraphernalia.

Polly places the dogs in their designated places, then hitches them up.

Morning arrived, and I got my first glimpse of our surroundings. Looking out the frosted window, I could see that we were in a basin surrounded by snow-covered mountains.

Though the sun was barely out, I could see and feel how isolated we were. Standing close to the window I could feel how cold it was, too. We enjoyed a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, bacon and homemade banana scones, straight out of the oven.

Following breakfast, Polly arrived and we suited up. And I mean really suited up. The four of us began to feel like marshmallows as we put on layer after layer. Footwear was provided in the form of large, reinforced-rubber army boots to protect us from the cold and damp (but not from falling down, which I did as soon as we set foot out the door).

Polly enlisted our assistance to help bring some of the dogs out of their kennels and load them into the truck. Polly and her guide partner, Kevin, own more than 40 dogs, and she explained that they know each one of them not only by name, but also by their bark.

We navigated the icy dog yard in our Rambo-style boots, retrieving each canine and bringing it to Polly. The dogs yelped as we retrieved them; those left behind howled when we passed them by. One particularly beautiful dog, a lively husky with a black-and-tan coat, shares Polly’s name, and was Polly’s team leader.

Yukon huskies are gentle and friendly in nature, however, like people, they don’t get along with everyone. Polly engineered the loading of the dogs into the truck to ensure they only met their best friends and not their acquaintances. She told us the dogs were thrilled since they were about to do what they were bred to do: pull.

Twenty minutes later we arrived at the frozen shore of Lake Umbagog, a 10-mile-long lake surrounded by a pine forest. As we surveyed the postcard-perfect scene, two deer ran from an island to the shoreline about a half mile from us. Twenty-four dogs, previously howling and barking with excitement, were wriggling with silent joy in anticipation of pulling us to the other side of the lake.