Inuit Games take over Ottawa’s TD Arena

One athlete walked away from the inaugural Southern Inuit Games in Ottawa last weekend with two gold medals.

Timothy Erkloo high-kicked his way to victory with a seven-foot jump and managed to travel 159 feet, 10 inches in the airplane event.

Caelin Holmes, 23, leaps into the air during his attempt at the one-foot high kick at the Southern Ontario Inuit Games in Ottawa Feb. 3. (Photo by Jorge Antunes)

His performance in the two competitions raised enthusiastic cheers from the small crowd in attendance at TD Arena.

Erkloo is originally from Pond Inlet and has called Ottawa home for the past eight years.

The Feb. 3 Games was the first event of its kind to be hosted by Tungasuvvingat Inuit, which provides services for urban Inuit living in southern Canada.

A small group of competitors tried their luck at the one-foot high kick, arm pull, airplane and kneel jump. Organizers handed out medals to the top three competitors in each event.

What started as a relatively small crowd filled out to about 100 people by the time the most popular event, the one-foot high kick, was underway.

One of those audience members was Jessica Ruano, who was there with her daughter, Joy, whom she adopted from an Inuit family.

Ruano said she enjoyed the show, adding events like these offer important opportunities to teach her young daughter about her roots.

“It’s essential,” she said, adding Joy is also learning Inuktitut.

Paige Kreps, TI’s Toronto regional manager, organized the event.

Some competitors were hesitant to appear on stage at such a large venue, Kreps said, so TI wants to run a few smaller programs as a gateway to recruiting competitors for the next Games.

“What we would really like to do between now and the next time is to do more workshops, [and] events in the community,” she said.