‘It’s good to try something new’: Nunavik suits up for snowshoeing at Arctic Winter Games

Nunavik youths put on their snowshoes and embraced the sport that’s not common in the region as competition got underway Monday at the Arctic Winter Games in Whitehorse.

Coach Daniel Samisack talks to Lucassie Thomassiah-Partridge, one of the eight Nunavik snowshoeing athletes, after the competition Monday. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)

“This is my first time today,” said Dwayne Patsauq,14, of Inukjuak. It was the first time he had ever competed in a snowshoe race because he was filling in for an athlete who couldn’t come to the Games that started Sunday, he added.

It was hard work.

“I was out of breath,” Patsauq said, adding he loved the challenge.

Snowshoeing — the sport of running laps with the traditional winter snowgear strapped to your feet — is not common in Nunavik, said team coach Daniel Samisack, who was also new to the sport. He and eight athletes started training for the competition about a year ago.

“We definitely need more training,” he said. “But it’s good to try something new.”

Patsauq finished eighth among eight competitors in the under-15 male category, completing the 2.5-kilometre course on Mount McIntyre in 20 minutes and 21 seconds.

Just ahead of him in seventh place was another Nunavik athlete, Lucassie Thomassiah-Partridge, who made it in 19 minutes and one second. Gold medal winner Kehlan Duncan from Team Alberta North won with a time of 11 minutes and 48 seconds.

Despite finishing last, Patsauq said he’s enjoying the atmosphere and the competition. It’s his first Arctic Winter Games.

“I really love it. Making friends and trading pins,” he said.

In the under-19 male group five-kilometre race, Nunavik’s Henry Gordon, 17, took fourth place in 31 minutes and 37 second, and Matiusie Thomassie placed seventh in the eight-athlete race in 37 minutes and 30 seconds. The winner, from the Yukon, clocked in at 23 minutes and 17 seconds.

In under-19 female five-kilometre race, Hannah-Mae Annanack of Nunavik placed sixth in 51 minutes and eight seconds, while Maryann Alaku did not finish.

In the under-15 female race over 2.5 kilometres, Bertha Annanack of Nunavik came seventh in 24 minutes and 33 seconds while Miika Crepeau Gordon finished eighth in 25 minutes and 43 seconds.

Nunavut did not enter a snowshoeing team.

The Arctic Winter Games, which opened Sunday and run until Saturday, bring 2,000 participants together from eight circumpolar regions — Nunavut, Nunavik, Alaska, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Alberta, Greenland and the Sápmi region of Scandinavia.