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COWICHAN VALLEY, B.C. - Two archers from the Deh Cho shot their way to silver medals at the North American Indigenous Games.

Lynsey Landry of Fort Providence and Melvin Vital of Nahanni Butte brought home the Deh Cho's highest medal rankings from the games while competing in 3-D archery.

Logan Matou, left, and Melvin Vital of Nahanni Butte show off the bronze and silver medals they won at the North American Indigenous Games. - photo courtesy of Edward Landry

Teammate Logan Matou from Nahanni Butte also made the medal podium by taking bronze. Deh Cho athletes brought home a total of four individual medals and three team medals from the games that were held in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island in B.C. from Aug. 3-10.

The archery team's performance was amazing considering their lack of experience and limited practice time, said Edward Landry, their coach.

"I was really shocked," he said.

The team included Edward's daughters Lynsey and Adeline, Logan Matou and Melvin Vital, and Matthew Bird and David Bird from Fort Smith. Out of the six-member team, four of the archers won medals.

Edward said he was expecting the games to be more of a learning process for the archers. The weekend before the games, the team spent a day and a half in Hay River practicing on 3-D targets.

It was the first time the athletes used the bows they'd be competing with at the games.

3-D archery involves shooting at lifelike animal targets ranging from caribou to crocodiles.

At the games the archers competed on two different courses.

Each course had 20 stations where participants had one chance to hit the target on the animal.

To add an extra challenge some of the targets were partially concealed behind trees and brush and some were placed at uphill or downhill angles from the archers.

On both days of the competition, the NWT archers started out tense but by the third or fourth target they relaxed and their aim improved, said Edward.

"They went out and had a blast," he said.

Now that the archers have had the experience of competing in the games, Edward said he hopes to keep them motivated so they continue to build their skills.

"I'm sure we'll have a very good group come to the next NAIG," he said.

Adeline Landry, 17, is already setting her sights on competing on a national level, maybe at the Canada Summer Games.

"I'm looking forward to it," Adeline said.

After only two weeks of experience using a compound bow after a year of using a recurve bow, Adeline placed fifth in the juvenile bow hunter open division at NAIG.

"It was a good experience," she said.

Her sister Lynsey, 13, also plans to shoot in more competitions.

"It's fun going to the games and meeting other people," said Lynsey.

Lynsey said she was only "kind of happy," with her silver medal because after the first day of competition she was in first place with an eight-point lead.

At her next competition she said she'll be aiming for gold.

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DEH CHO MEDALS

3-D Archery

Lynsey Landry (Fort Providence) - silver, bantam female traditional

Melvin Vital (Nahanni Butte) - silver, bantam male traditional

Logan Matou (Nahanni Butte) - bronze, midget male traditional

Soccer

Bantam Male - bronze

Devon Cli (Fort Simpson)

Joshua Lafferty (Fort Simpson)

Rylan McLeod (Fort Simpson)

Alex Roche (Fort Simpson)

Steven Thompson (Fort Simpson)

Riley McLeod (Fort Liard)

Juvenile Male - bronze

Lief Amundson (Fort Simpson)

Logan Donovan (Fort Simpson)

Anthony Roche (Fort Simpson)

Thomas Roche (Fort Simpson)

Cameron Sapp (Fort Providence)

Mathew Gauthier Jean Marie River)

Juvenile Female- bronze

Amanda Bradbury (Fort Simpson)

Nicole Cholette (Fort Simpson)

Jenny Thompson (Fort Simpson)

Jackie Thompson (Fort Simpson)

Swimming

Shawna McLeod (Fort Providence) - bronze, juvenile female free 100 metre team relay