Nunavik wins silver in Dene ‘game of deception’ at Arctic Winter Games

Nunavik is taking home silver in Dene hand games as the “game of deception” grows in popularity in the region, coach Gregory Rupert said.

Nunavik Dene games player Ambriel Rupert, 18, put on some face paint to distract her opponents during hand games Wednesday at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre in Whitehorse. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)

“I think they are doing great, and are probably going to get a medal,” Rupert said on Wednesday before results in. At the time, Nunavik was taking on Greenland at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre.

Team Nunavik’s silver medal came in the open female category, behind Northwest Territories. Team Nunavut earned bronze.

Hand games is a traditional Dene guessing game. In Arctic Winter Games competition, two teams of four sit facing each other while Dene drums pound. Players pass and hide small objects like coins or small bones in their hands, while the opposing team tries to guess who has the object to score points.

The purpose of the game is to “cheat” and “deceive,” Rupert said, so many players put on face paint or move around during the game to confuse their opponents.

“It’s all about the mind,” said Ambriel Rupert, 18, one of the Nunavik team members. “Sometimes even the smallest face twitches matter.”

The other open female team members are Aiva Lingard, 18, Tina Mifsud, 21, and Judith Naluiyuk, 26, who also won a silver medal in the Dene game stick pull open female category.

A third Dene games silver went to Nunavik in the under-18 snow snake event, won by Mary Palliser Jones. Also for Nunavik, bronze medals in Dene games went to Samson Esperon and Aiva-Grace Mesher, both in stick pull.

Dene mostly live in the Northwest Territories, Yukon and northern Alberta. There is traditionally no Dene population in Nunavik.

However, cultural games like finger pull, snow snake, stick pull, pole push and hand games have made their way to Nunavik thanks to Arctic Winter Games. It gives athletes an opportunity to participate in events that don’t require a lot of sports infrastructure or equipment.

“They’re getting more and more popular,” Gregory Rupert said. “And I think the more we win, more people will start doing this.”

On Thursday, Dene game players are up for another round of competitions in finger pull, and on Friday it will be pole push.

The Arctic Winter Games in Whitehorse opened Sunday and run until Saturday.

They brought together approximately 2,000 athletes from eight circumpolar regions Nunavut, Nunavik, Alaska, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, northern Alberta, Greenland and the Sápmi region of Scandinavia.