INUVIK
Swimmers lined up to dive into the water, timers stood by at the ready and the pool rang with shouts of encouragement as competitors raced in their lanes.

Brooke Dalton dives into the water to start her turn in a relay event at a mock meet earlier this month. - Sarah Ladik/NNSL photo

But it wasn't real competition - at least not yet.

The Mackenzie Muskrat Swim Team, or most of it, will be heading to Yellowknife in February for a territorial competition, but the club in Inuvik decided to host a mock-meet earlier this month to get swimmers ready for the races.

So instead of a regular practice, coaches and assistants set up various events and cycled participants through, imitating what a real meet will feel like.

"You can tell they're catching on," said assistant coach Tara Gilmour. "This is the second mock-meet we've done and you can see the kids are starting to know what to do."

The Muskrats are a growing club, with about 20 swimmers signed up. Only 11 of them will be heading to Yellowknife next week, and many of them will be first-time competitors.

Kyra Buckle said that she will be one of the older girls in her division, having not yet turned 11 and that as a result, she expects to "kick butt."

"When I was a little kid, I dreamt I would go to the Olympics for swimming," she said.

Brooke Dalton, one of the most competitive swimmers in the club, said she hopes to win a medal this year, since she came close last time around.

"Swimming keeps me happy," she said.

One of the club's top talents, Kiera McDonald, went to the North American Indigenous Games last year and said that while the territorials are much smaller than that, she still gets nervous for bigger meets.

"I've liked swimming since I was little," she said. "I'm hoping to get some personal bests in Yellowknife."

Head coach Vince Brown said his team is more than ready for territorials and that he's looking for each one of them to improve on their own personal bests at the meet.

To more accurately measure those times, the Legion Ladies Auxiliary recently donated the funds for a starter, an official piece of equipment that creates a noise to signal the start of the race. Brown said it used to be done by shouting, but that at a swim meet, sometimes the pool can get so noisy that swimmers can't hear those shouts.

And the pool can certainly get noisy with 20 children and a slew of coaches and assistants all cheering each other on. Still, Brown said growing the club is not a goal in and of itself.

"Developing the swimmers we have is the goal," he said. "We've got a good number now."