Yellowknife (Jan 15/07) - Seated in a room in Yellowknife, renowned Northern artist Antoine Mountain held a simple felt box in his hands.

"Not many people in the North have one of these," he said, peering inside.

Antoine Mountain shows off his Tom Longboat medal, awarded to him as a top aboriginal athlete in Canada in 1967. This winter, Mountain will be in Whitehorse for the Canada Winter Games. This time, however, he will be there as an artist. - Adam Johnson/NNSL photo

Mountain is preparing for a trip to Banff, where he will take a writing residency before heading off to the Canada Winter Games in Whitehorse. He has been selected as part of the Games' cultural festival, where he will have a chance to show off his work, and take in the spectacle.

Mountain is known to many as a painter, writer and activist, with a keen interest in Dene history and politics. But he was also once an accomplished athlete.

The metal disc Antoine held is the Tom Longboat medal.

"It's given each year to the top First Nations athlete in Canada," he said.

Mountain received his in 1967, before he attended the first Canada Winter Games in Quebec City.

"It was great," he said. "I was on the NWT cross-country ski racing team."

Mountain trained through the TEST program, which he said he got involved with while in school in Inuvik. His ski team included Sharon and Shirley Firth, who would go on to represent Canada in four consecutive Winter Olympics from 1972 to 1984.

It's strange what a person will remember most clearly from such a big event.

"Some of my biggest impressions were of the food," Mountain said. "It was my big introduction to southern food.

"All athletes are motivated by food," he said with a chuckle.

As he looked at his new medal (which replaced the original, which was lost in a warehouse fire), Mountain said it will be interesting to take in the Games all over again, nearly 40 years later.

"I doubt there will be too many people there who were at the first," he said.

While painting is Mountain's main passion these days, he said he has been getting back into skiing now and then, though with mixed results.

"To save wear and tear on my skis, I go down on my back," he joked.

After the Games, Mountain hopes to upgrade his skills by going back to school at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, where he hopes to... well, learn a few new things.

"(Students) approach you like you're some kind of grand master," Mountain said with a laugh. "I'm just there to steal some more ideas from young people."