Nunavik’s recreation department wants to get youth moving

Team Nunavik-Quebec members compete in the log push event at the 2014 edition of the Arctic Winter Games in Fairbanks, Alaska. (PHOTO COURTESY OF KRG)

KUUJJUAQ — If you’re a teacher in Nunavik who’s new to the north and you plan on organizing a sports activity with your students, the Kativik Regional Government might be able to help.

The KRG’s recreation department, which employs coordinators in each of Nunavik’s 14 communities, says it’s ready to lend a hand to help deliver programming to students, as part of physical education or as extracurricular activities.

“A lot of teachers run after school programs,” said Nancianne Grey, who runs the KRG’s recreation department. “And whenever staff go to the villages, we let them know, so our recreation coordinators can organize a demonstration of what we do.”

Imagine you’re just arrived in Nunavik from Toronto, and you’ve never seen the high-kick, said Grey, referring to a traditional Inuit sport.

That’s an activity a local recreation coordinator can demonstrate and help implement.

“We get a lot of turnover in the schools, so they don’t necessarily know all the infrastructure available.” Grey said. “So we’ve taken the extra step to reach out to the community’s schools.”

The KRG department runs three main programs for Nunavik’s communities, all of them geared towards Nunavimmiut youth.

Each year, the department puts together a team to participate in Arctic Sports, Dene Games and other events as part of the Arctic Winter Games.

The department is preparing for the upcoming games, which will take place in Nuuk, Greenland in March 2016. About 100 Nunavik athletes will compete for 64 spots on Team Nunavik-Quebec at upcoming regional trials hosted in Kangiqsualujjuaq Nov. 27 to Nov. 29.

This year, the department has launched a pilot project to help train athletes who compete in cross country skiing and snowshoeing events, Grey said.

The KRG plans to hire instructors to work in three communities: Kuujjuaq, Kangiqsualujjuaq and Salluit this winter to lead an intense training program.

“The goal is to mentally prepare these athletes for the fast endurance that they’re going to experience at the games,” Grey said.

“A lot of the kids practice, but they don’t have a standard to work up to. They’re competing against other kids who have infrastructure in place.”

The department will select 16 members for Team Nunavik-Quebec’s cross-country team by the end of the year, Grey said.

In 2009, the KRG teamed up with Cirque du Soleil’s Cirque du Monde program to launch a social circus program in Nunavik’s communities.

Six years into the program, Grey said the program “is showing sustainability,” as more Inuit are trained as instructors and can lead the program locally.

Cirqiniq is now active in 10 communities, she said.

Finally, the KRG’s kite-ski program has caught wind in recent years, attracting skiers in almost all of Nunavik’s communities.

The wind-powered sport, which uses large kites to sail across ice and snow, drew the region’s top athletes to its fourth annual tournament last spring.

The department hopes to tweak the program this year and find ways to allow kite-ski instructors in the communities to take on the program as much as possible, in much the same direction that Cirqiniq is moving in, Grey said.

For more information on recreation programs available through the KRG, contact the organization in Kuujjuaq at 819-964-2961.