Inuvik's Moe Grant and her 13-year-old buddy Andrew Crist of Whitehorse had practically given up all hope of carrying the Olympic torch in their respective communities.

Matthew Skinner shares a hug with Moe Grant as she passes him the torch during the Nov. 4 Olympic Torch Relay. Grant is a three-time Olympic torchbearer. - Andrew Rankin/NNSL photo

That was until they were blessed by someone else's misfortune.

They were chosen to fill in for people who were originally chosen to participate in the respective torch relays but couldn't make it.

Crist was first to get the wonderful news because the torch arrived in Whitehorse the day before landing in Inuvik. Overcome with excitement, the son of Charlene Alexander, co-founder of the Great Northern Arts Festival, phoned Grant to tell her of his great fortune.

On Nov. 4, Sara Brown, Inuvik's senior administrative officer, turned out to be the bearer of good news for Grant.

"Sara came into the shop and says 'you're on' and I went, 'Yahoo!'" said Grant.

The next day she rang Crist to share the news.

"We were both pretty excited," she said.

But for Grant it would be the third time she would carry the Olympic Torch. She was picked to be a torchbearer during the lead up to the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary.

Though she wanted to participate in Inuvik, Grant made a mistake while filling out the application and she was picked to run in New Brunswick. So she flew to the Maritimes to join in the celebration.

When the torch finally arrived in Inuvik, she was able to convince relay officials to let her pass the torch off to the first runner.

Grant approached Inuvik's relay organizing team to see if it could persuade officials of the Olympic organizing committee to allow her to do the same this year. At first the prospects didn't look good.

It turned out the Inuvik resident of 35 years got much more than she hoped for.

"I think it was one of the highlights of my life," she said. "To carry it in my home town, knowing the flame has come all the way from Greece and it's going all across Canada, that's a pretty unique experience. You actually feel like you're a part of the Olympics."

An avid cross-country skier and longtime member of the Inuvik Ski Club, Grant said she was particularly proud to run her section of the trail along Mackenzie Road with nine other cross-country skiers from the area, including four-time Olympian Sharon Firth of Aklavik, who once dominated the Canadian skiing scene along with her sister Shirley. The pair regularly trained in Inuvik.

"You see how hard it was for those guys to make it to the Olympics and to come back with gold medals from Inuvik when they're battling all the elements and you don't have a lot of help like you do in big cities, it makes you feel proud," she said. "I'm not particularly close with any of them but during the run I think we all felt a special bond."

Matthew Skinner passed the torch on to Grant and agreed that he also felt empowered by carrying the flame.

"I thought, I'm the only person in the world right now that's carrying the torch and that I could do anything," he said.

Arlene Hansen, a friend of Grant's, said she was glad to see an active community volunteer chosen to run in the relay.

"I was very happy," said Hansen. "She's a great community representative, an avid skier and has always supported recreation and athletics. It's great to see she was rewarded for that and joined the celebration."