Around 30 N.W.T. athletes without passports as Arctic Winter Games approach

A young athlete from Délı̨nę, N.W.T., may miss the 2024 Arctic Winter Games next month in Alaska as she isn't able to access any passport services in her community. 

Sifera Kenny Takazo, the 15-year-old Délı̨nę athlete, isn't alone in the situation. The N.W.T.'s chef de mission said there may be as many as 30 athletes from the territory who still don't have their passports and the deadline to provide them to the host community — Palmer, Alaska — is only days away. 

Kenny Takazo said the deadline crept up on her as she lost her phone about six weeks ago and missed emailed reminders. But she says even if she had seen them, there was little she could've done living thousands of kilometres away from the nearest passport office. 

Kenny Takazo's mother, Kaylene Mabbitt, says one of the biggest obstacles is that they need a commercial photographer to take the passport photo, which isn't available in Délı̨nę. With the deadline approaching, the only possible way for Kenny Takazo to get a passport in time would be for her and a caretaker to fly to Edmonton and go to a passport office. 

The next available flight from Délı̨nę to Yellowknife costs over $2,000 a ticket for a round trip, then $1,500 a ticket for Yellowknife to Edmonton round trip, on top of the cost of accommodations.

That means a last-minute trip to get the passport could cost them as much as $8,000. 

For Mabbitt, the situation is reflective of a larger issue, of the barriers remote communities face in access to sport compared to larger centres like Yellowknife. 

Mabbitt feels there should've been more reminders and correspondence provided to the athletes' caretakers instead of the athletes themselves.

Rita Mercredi, chef de mission for Team N.W.T. at the Arctic Winter Games (AWG), says Sport North, which organizes the team, has reminders about passports on its website and in handbooks, and has also provided reminders to coaches at the tryouts and even provided reminders after last year's games.

"The messaging about passports has definitely been out there," she said.

"I just think it's really tough for some ... in the communities to be able to access some of the paperwork that they need and the services that they need to complete the passport applications." 

It's an issue also affecting the Nunavut AWG team, with 50 to 70 of its athletes also in need of passports for the upcoming games. 

Mercredi said there's an internal deadline of Feb. 12 — it was extended from Jan. 27 — for athletes to provide their passport details, which will then be passed onto the host community. 

With that date approaching, she said the team has been in contact with the federal government to discuss expediting the passport process.