‘It helps you carry yourself’: Basketball meet was about more than games

Around 90 teenagers from nine different Nunavik communities met in Kuujjuaraapik recently for two things — to play some basketball and make friends.

Still, organizers say, the four-day Spirit of the Odeyak event has a far deeper impact on youth.

The gathering, which ran from Nov. 6 to 10, was named after the Odeyak, a unique vessel built to merge the appearance of a canoe and a kayak as a symbol of the Inuit and Cree cultures.

In 1990, the Odeyak was used to transport a group of Cree and Inuit on a 2,000-kilometre journey to New York to protest the building of a hydroelectric dam near Kuujjuaraapik/Whapmagoostui.

Nicolas Cameron, a 17-year-old basketball player from Salluit, finishes a game of basketball where he scored multiple three-pointers. (Photo by Cedric Gallant., special to Nunatsiaq News)

This month’s Spirit of the Odeyak event was put together by the group Grind Now Shine Later Nunavik.

Organizer Russ Johnson said the idea came up a few years ago when he asked young hoopers from Kuujjuaraapik/Whapmagoostui what image they wanted on T-shirts, and one of the kids mentioned the Odeyak.

The meaning of the initiative became clear — it’s about surmounting and fighting against challenges that lie ahead.

The youths attending the event were between 12 and 22 years old.

Nicolas Cameron, 17, of Salluit, is no stranger to basketball in Nunavik. He understands that sports is about far more than just games.

“It helps you carry yourself, it helps you get stronger physically and mentally,” he said in an interview inside the gymnasium office.

His inspiration, the late National Basketball Association star Kobe Bryant, was a proponent of what he named the “Mamba mentality,” which is defined as being about the journey and not the result.

“I like to carry the words he said,” said Cameron.

Multiple coaches from various backgrounds in sports were brought to the event to help manage the youths. Walter Whitebean, a basketball coach from Kahnawake, near Montreal, said events like this help young people open up about their lives at home.

“It is really important to have that role model in your community,” he said. “Somebody to set the tone and say this is what we are trying to do.”

At the basketball jamboree, two certified referees came in from south to offer a clinic for some of the older players to join in and learn how to ref basketball games.

“Some of the 11- and 12-year-olds that are here now are gonna be the coaches running this in 10 years,” he said.

The event also provided a space for youths to explore deeper conversations between each other and with coaches.

“You get to know these kids pretty closely,” Whitebean said. “They become comfortable, and you become more than a coach.”

He said kids remain curious and pose countless questions to the basketball players they befriend. Grind Now Shine Later Nunavik held a similar event in Whitebean’s community and “it was the same [in my hometown], my kids were like, ‘Hey, where are they from?’”

Whitebean believes youths are always going to look for something to do: “If there is nothing to do, they are going to look for the bad influences.”

Instead, basketball offers a positive outlet.

“If you don’t have positive outlets to utilize, there is only one other way you’re gonna be going,” he said.