KUGLUKTUK/COPPERMINE
A stroke of lucky timing means the upcoming Kitikmeot Northern Games will have a bigger crowd than usual.

Kugluktuk last hosted the Kitikmeot Summer Games in 2012, when elder Mamie Oniak competed in the tea boiling competition. The community is hosting the event Aug. 26 to 28. - David Ho file photo

The hamlet of Kugluktuk is hosting the games and is also expecting to see 200 tourists disembarking or embarking on the cruise ship Sea Adventurer the same weekend.

"It's great," said planning committee co-chair Edna Elias, noting the timing was a coincidence. "We're excited about that. They'll have real hands-on live events as they're happening, experiences to witness. We just picked the dates because students will be back in school, it's a time of year that might not be too buggy."

The games run Aug. 26 to 28, and the Quark Expeditions cruise is scheduled to arrive with 100 passengers Aug. 27, and depart the same day with another 100 passengers.

"It's a real opportunity for tourists to come and witness a weekend of cultural enjoyment, competition and activity," Elias said. "It's really a celebration of culture, reinforcing culture, sharing culture, opportunities to teach the youth, and it's a time for sharing food, culture, music, dance, and skills.

"It's an opportunity for athletes in the Arctic sports events to show off skills in the events in which they are strong. In Arctic sports, it's one of the only competitions where everyone supports and coaches one another. It's a very sportsmanlike games and competition."

The other big event is the Good Man and Good Woman competition, which gives people the chance to show their skills in traditional skills, including bannock making, dry fish making, seal skinning, duck plucking and tea boiling.

"It's amazing to see how fast or little some of these participants can work with," she said. "I've seen a woman sharpening her ulu on her toe rubbers, and getting her sealskin done in record time. You see amazing things like that."

The games started in the Western Arctic in 1970, she said, but the Kitikmeot region is the only one to continue the tradition in Nunavut or the NWT. "Two things we're bringing back this year, the inter-community tug-of-war that used to be a big, big event, and also the two-person canoe races," she said. "We're also declaring Sunday of that weekend as Kalikuk Sunday," with everyone encouraged to wear their homemade parka covers.

Each Kitikmeot community is able to send up to eight participants. The games have $75,000 in funding from Sport Nunavut, hamlet economic development officer Bill Williams said. Most of that money will go to transportation costs for athletes. The planning committee is doing fundraising for entertainment and other costs, Williams said.

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