Iqaluit (May 02/05) - What would you do for two free trips to Ottawa and $3,000 cash?

For Johnesah Joamie, drinking a cup filled with blood and fish guts wasn't too tall an order. The 22-year-old Iqaluit resident joined five other Fear Factor contestants in his home town recently and came out the victor.

Johnesah Joamie slurps up a tasty worm and fish eye pie at Fear Factor in Iqaluit recently. He won the contest, netting him $3,000 and two trips to Ottawa.

"I just entered for the hell of it," he said afterwards at Inuit Broadcasting Corporation, where he's worked as a technical producer for the past year and a half.

Used to working behind the scenes, the competition was Joamie's first time in front of bright lights and hundreds of screeching children.

His first challenge was to fill a pitcher with fish guts using only his mouth. Joamie finished last during this first event, but because it wasn't an elimination round, he stayed in.

Next, he had to eat a pie filled with worms and fish eyeballs, which the announcer tried to persuade contestants was "just like spaghetti and meatballs."

"No," said Joamie afterwards. "Not even close."

Then came the hardest part, the cup of fish guts. Joamie grimaced and clutched his stomach as he choked back the contents.

"I almost gave up," he said, explaining how he just took deep breaths and kept the cash and tickets in mind.

After a quick race around an obstacle course that had him scaling walls and climbing through a pipe lined with ketchup and mustard, Joamie was declared the winner. His grandmother jumped up and down ecstatically after giving him a big hug in front of the crowd.

His stomach felt queasy afterwards, but he managed to keep it all down.

Joamie said he plans to use his tickets this summer to check out Ottawa for his first time and head to Montreal with his girlfriend to visit her mother.

The last time he went south was 1989. "It's been a long time," he said.