LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON
Around 40 youth and children from Fort Providence and five youth from Kakisa met with dozens of runners from across the Northwest Territories on Oct. 2 to compete for the 2015 cross-country running championships.

Some of the youngest participants at the cross-country championships begin their race on Oct. 2. - photo courtesy of Deh Gah School

The championships, hosted this year by the hamlet's Deh Gah School, brought together about 210 runners from 21 schools.

Championship results were not immediately available due to some problems with scorekeeping. However, as of Oct. 20 an incomplete list had been released.

Deh Gah student Cameron Bouvier, 5, took first place in his age and gender group, with Deh Gah's Colton Landry coming in second and Xander Landry - the youngest participant at four years old - winning third.

Fourth was Peyton Simba, 5, from Kakisa.

Kakisa also won the mens 18 and older category with Greg Reardon, the school principal.

Nimisha Bastedo, Deh Gah School's outdoor education co-ordinator, recalls running in the championships as an athlete years ago when she was in Grade 8, and said being on the side of the organizers this year was a much different experience.

"Being on the other side, there are so many things you don't realize goes on in the background when you're a runner," she said.

"I'm really grateful to community members who helped us out. A lot of high school students helped out as trail marshals and some Aurora College students helped out, and our whole staff was involved."

With a heavy staff changeover this year at Deh Gah School, Bastedo said staff learned together what to do and what not to do during the tournament.

"I think we're really looking forward to taking what we learned this year and building on that, so we don't have to re-invent the wheel next time we do it," she said.

"We learned a lot about how we can improve this in the future."

In particular, Bastedo said, the school will look at a more modern method of clocking times for runners next time they host the championships.

The method they employed on Oct. 2 involved pressing a clicker when a runner came across the finish line. However, that meant runners had to line up after finishing in order to have their times written down, something that created a backlog for staff and led to some issues determining winners.

Runners had various lengths to go, depending on their age groups, with some running eight kilometres and younger children running one kilometre on the hamlet's outdoor trails.

"It was really cold that day, but they stuck it out. It's fun to get people from all across the territory who have different levels of experience with competitions like this," Bastedo said.

"For a lot of them, especially the younger children, it was probably their first time even going to (an event) this big."

Prior to the tournament, staff members and volunteers worked to make sure the trails were still safe, while keeping obstacles around for runners to tackle.

"There were rocks and mud to jump over, and sticks," Bastedo said.

"Overall, our goal was to have people come out, run and have fun, and I think all those things happened."

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