2024 Kiruna Symposium in October
Our annual meeting is coming in 2024 in Kiruna Sweden!
Scroll down for discounted room reservations
Click Here for Abstracts & Poster Submissions
General Conference Information:
The ISDVMA Board of Directors and membership enthusiastically invite you to join us in Kiruna, Sweden, October 3 – 6, 2024, for our next Biennial Meeting and Symposium. Start planning now!
We are honored to be sharing the long weekend with the Kiruna Sladdhundklub’s renowned biennial Musher Symposium, a decades-old convocation of European mushers from throughout Scandinavia and lower Europe. Since at least 2011, each Sladdhundklub Biennial Symposium has hosted roughly 350 mushers and some two-dozen exhibitors, as well as notable speakers such as mushers Roxy Wright, Ray Redington, Dallas Seavey, Hobo Jim, Jeff Schultz, Hans Gatt, Tim White, and veterinarians Drs. Dominique Grandjean, Arleigh Reynolds, and Jerry Vanek.
In 2024, the two-day Musher Symposium will be preceded by the ISDVMA Biennial Symposium featuring two full days of the latest advances in veterinary science and sled dog medicine presented by the foremost researchers in their respective fields. These Symposia, held since 1994, continue to expand the ever increasing and astonishing library of data on the incomparable sled dog athlete. Thirty years later, our 2024 meeting will continue the tradition.
This will be a meeting of many firsts:
The first ISDVMA Symposium north of the Arctic Circle!
The first Symposium where sled dog veterinarians will be surrounded by 350 mushers!
The first Symposium held in Scandinavia—the lands of Nansen, Sverdrup, Astrup, Amundsen, Nordenskjöld, Borchgrevink, Seppälä, and Kasson! And of course the first presentations of the most recent sled dog research.
Kiruna is located in the far North of Sweden, 67°50′56″N /20°18′10″E, 145 km (90 mi.) north of the Arctic Circle and nestled between her Scandinavian neighbors of Norway and Finland in the traditional lands of the Sámi (Saami,
Lappish). By October, the sun will be racing south, the first dusting of snow will be teasing us, and the lengthening nights will be awash with the Auroras. The dogs in all the racing and touring kennels—for which Kiruna and Arctic Scandinavia are famous—will be in training, and the frost will make the reindeer stews, suovas, and aquavit that much more comforting every evening.
Plans also are in progress for post-Symposium tours of the region including tours of the Kiruna iron ore mines—among the largest in the world, the silver shops of Kautokeino, the Norsk Sámi parliament and museum of Karasjok, the Sámi church and ice hotel in Jukkasjärvi, the home of Santa Claus in Rovaniemi, the World War II Museum and Ofotfjorden in Narvik, Seppälä’s father’s birthplace in Junosuando, the Svensk Sámi parliament, the museum of Jokkmokk, Tromsø, Alta, Nordkapp, and the list goes on and on.
Take a virtual tour of Kiruna and Arctic Scandinavia on the internet and start planning for the sled dog veterinarian’s trip of a lifetime! And after you’ve devoured everything you can find online, sit back with a copy of Dog Sledding in Norway by Rune Waaler and Knut Skjesol, and immerse yourself in the long remarkable history of mushing in Scandinavia.
We will see you in the Far North in less than 9 months!
2024 Kiruna Program Sponsors:
A Global Companion in Pet Specialty Pharma
2024 Kiruna Discounted Hotel Rooms – Available Now:
Book your hotel room now as these rooms are will not be available for long. Prices for rooms will go up as soon as these are sold out. The ISDVMA cannot guarentee availability of room(s) up until the symposium. For best pricing and availability, please book your room now.
To book your stay with the ISDVMA at the Scandic please visit their website at:
www.scandichotels.com
• Choose the Kiruna Scandic
(from among the many Scandic Hotels listed)
• Enter the dates of your stay; and
• Discount Code: PRO10SE.
While the room rates may be listed in Svensk kroner (SEK), the exchange rate at of the end of January is roughly
1 USD to 10.45 SEK (1 Euro to 11.35 SEK).