Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

INUVIK (Mar 05/99) - Aurora College's Inuvik campus will host an aboriginal sport clinic March 5- 7, where about 30 people from Baffin Island to Yukon will meet to discuss arctic sports, Dene games and Inuit wrestling.

"We have an opportunity to bring experts together for the first time to explore how these sporting events fit into Northern culture and how they can be promoted," says recreation leaders program instructor Julian Tomlinson.

"Second, we hope to emerge from this event with substantial resources in the form of information and educational kits that will allow people throughout the North to hold sporting events of this kind."

These traditional sports are regularly showcased in competitions such as the Arctic Winter Games.

Dene games, for example, include sports such as the snow snake, where competitors throw a long harpoon as far as they can in the snow. Arctic sports include games such as the one-foot kick, two-foot kick, the knuckle hop and the airplane.

Tomlinson says a recently-produced arctic sports manual sets out the historical and cultural context for some sports.

"Some activities were used to mete out decision making and justice, for example," he says.

"Wrestling was often used to determine disputes so there are some interesting backgrounds to some of these activities."

He says symposium participants will not focus specifically on preparing for the Arctic Winter Games but will broaden the perspective to include whatever people want to talk about.

That may mean discussion about sports not currently in the Arctic Winter Games.

"There will be a cross section of people from elders to some athletes. We will need some demonstrations of the activities. We want to explore some of the documents on the biomechanics of the activities to help us on how you teach."

Instructors are increasingly incorporating traditional activities into the recreation leaders program and this symposium is, in part, an out-growth of that.

But because participants will come from around Canada's North, the event will foster aboriginal sport growth far from Inuvik and help secure resources for the future.