Key takeaways
- Bidos is a traditional Sami stew, usually reindeer meat with potato and carrot, served warm once the sledding is done.
- Lunch is eaten inside a Gamme, a traditional Sami turf and timber hut, with the group sitting together around an open fire.
- Alongside the stew there is something hot to drink and a chocolate cake the camp calls its own signature.
- Vegetarian options exist, but only if you ask in advance rather than choosing on the day at the camp.
The Meal the Tour Is Named For
The tour is booked as husky sledding with a traditional lunch, and the lunch is not an afterthought bolted onto the ticket afterwards. It exists because roughly forty five minutes on the runners in Arctic cold leaves most people stiff, cold and properly hungry, and the camp's answer to that is a hot meal indoors rather than a sandwich eaten standing up in the snow.
This husky wilderness camp outside Tromso serves Bidos, a Sami stew, inside a Gamme hut warmed by an open fire. Ask people afterwards what they remember most about a Tromso husky camp day and the meal comes up almost as often as the driving does, which is exactly why the tour is named for it rather than for the sled.
None of this depends on one unlucky cold afternoon. The camp runs through the coldest stretch of the Tromso winter, when daytime temperatures in the region typically sit at or below freezing for weeks at a time. A hot meal indoors is not a treat added for atmosphere in that context, it is the point at which the day actually turns comfortable again.
Two People, One Sled, Then Lunch
The sled itself is shared. Two people ride together and swap driving and riding at the halfway point, so everyone spends part of the forty five minutes standing on the runners and part of it seated. Sometimes the dogs need a hand on a soft patch of trail, and the group ends up pushing the sled themselves.
None of that is difficult exactly, the operator asks for a normal level of fitness rather than anything more, but it is real physical effort spent outside in genuinely cold weather. That is the state most people are in by the time the group reaches the Gamme, which is worth knowing before deciding the lunch is the boring part of the day.
Bidos stew and hot drinks set out inside the Gamme, the fire going behind
What Bidos Actually Is
Bidos is a Sami stew, traditionally made with reindeer meat, potato and carrot, and served warm. It is a working meal built for cold weather rather than a dish arranged to look good on a plate, and that is exactly the point after a morning spent outside in the wind.
Reindeer herding is a living occupation across northern Norway today, not a display staged for visitors on a husky experience in Tromso, and reindeer meat's place on this table follows from that rather than from any theme built around a tour group. The stew itself stays simple: reindeer meat, potato and carrot, with nothing added just to dress it up for the people passing through.
Eating in a Gamme, by an Open Fire
A Gamme is a traditional Sami turf and timber hut, and lunch on this tour is eaten inside one rather than in a purpose built restaurant. The group sits together around an open fire, which does the job that central heating and table settings do everywhere else.
There is no attempt to turn the room into something it is not. The building's job is the same as the stew's: get a group who have just come in from the cold warm and fed, in a space built for exactly that rather than for photographs.
None of it needs decoration to do that work. A room already warmed by a fire and filled with a group who have just come in from the snow does most of the job on its own, before the stew has even reached the table.
45 min
Roughly forty five minutes on the sled runners in Arctic cold is why the hot Bidos waiting afterwards is the part most people remember.
What Comes After the Stew
Bidos is not the whole meal. Something hot to drink comes with it, and the camp follows the stew with a chocolate cake it describes as its own signature. Neither is a footnote: after a morning in the cold, a hot drink can land harder than the food itself.
None of this is elaborate, and it is not meant to be. It is a straightforward hot lunch built around one stew, one hot drink and one dessert, served in a hut with a fire rather than a restaurant with a menu to choose from.
Vegetarian Option, If You Ask Ahead
Vegetarian versions of the meal are available, but only by prior request rather than as a standing choice on the day. If reindeer stew is not something you want to eat, say so before the tour rather than at the table in the Gamme.
This is worth sorting out early rather than assuming the camp can improvise a vegetarian plate on the spot for a group that has just come in from the snow. Ask ahead at booking and the meal is one less thing to think about once you are actually there.
Part of the Package, Not an Add-On
The lunch is part of the tour as booked, alongside transport both ways, the snowsuit and boots, and the dog sled instruction itself. It is not a separate booking, and it is not an optional extra tacked onto the sledding afterwards.
Practically, that means the only two things worth bringing yourself are a hat and gloves. Everything else needed to get through the cold and the meal that follows it, including the food, is already part of what a Tromso husky camp booking covers.
