After 5-year hiatus, the Arctic Winter Games return this weekend

Nelten Panaktalok is feeling pretty good about his one-foot high kick skills. It's his favourite Arctic sport, and he's been looking forward to putting his strategy to work next week.

"I passed eight feet by like, an inch — in practice. But once tryouts came, I barely went up to 7'10," he said. "It is pretty tough."

Panaktalok, 17, has waited a long time for this week, when he could travel from his home in Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., to the 2023 Arctic Winter Games (AWG) in northern Alberta. The weeklong event starts on Sunday.

"This is ... I don't know how to feel man, this is my first AWG and I wanna see how this goes. Hopefully it goes well," Panaktalok said.

Nineteen-year-old Kaydra Nogasak, also from Tuktoyaktuk, says her best Arctic sport is the Alaskan high kick. She hasn't been doing it that long, so she's excited for the chance to go to the games, like some of her siblings and cousins before her.

"It feels good. It feels so nice," she said. "I come to every practice, every time. Yeah, it's really fun."

There's always a lot of anticipation surrounding the Arctic Winter Games, among the thousands of young athletes who attend, as well as the coaches, games organizers and volunteers. Many athletes come from smaller, remote communities across the circumpolar world, and the AWGs might be their first big trip away from home, and the first time they compete against people they've never met. 

This year's event has also had even more build-up than usual, as it's been five years since the last AWGs. They're typically held every second year but the pandemic messed that schedule up.

The 2020 AWGs were scheduled to happen in Whitehorse but were cancelled at the last minute that March. At the time, it was a shocking and unexpected decision and, for many Northerners, the first big reality check about the growing risk of COVID-19 and the implications of a global pandemic. 

A year into the pandemic, games officials decided to play it safe and pull the plug on the 2022 games — this time, a full year early. But instead of cancelling the Wood Buffalo games outright, they crossed their fingers and set new dates in 2023.

And so here we are. Public-health restrictions are largely a memory, AWG officials have revoked a policy on mandatory COVID-19 vaccines, and Fort McMurray, Alta., is opening its doors this week to about 2,000 athletes, coaches and volunteers from across northern Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Scandinavia.

"It really is a highlight for a lot of our athletes," said Megan Cromarty, chef de mission for Team Yukon.

"The pinnacle of their athletic career is the Arctic Winter Games. So I think just having the opportunity to compete at it, they're excited for."

The Arctic sports and Dene games are unique highlights of the AWGs, but there's everything from hockey and skiing, to volleyball and table tennis. Archery has just been added to the roster this time around, and will see competitors from Yukon, N.W.T., and Northern Alberta.