Walk to Tuk a hit
Biggest year yet for Inuvik participation in annual event
Stewart Burnett
Northern News Services
Thursday, March 9, 2017
INUVIK
For Scott and Andrea Brown, the Walk to Tuk was about more than exercise.
Scott, Andrea and daughter Camryn Brown gather with a picture of father Michael D'Addario. D'Addario, who last year underwent a quintuple bypass after a heart attack, took part in the Walk to Tuk from Ontario. - Stewart Burnett/NNSL photo
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A wrap-up event for the annual NWT Recreation and Parks Association program, which challenges teams of people to walk an equivalent number of steps from Fort Providence to Tuktoyaktuk, saw participants gather for photos and t-shirts Monday, March 6.
In those photos, the Brown family also held up another photo. It was of Michael D'Addario, Scott and Andrea's father.
"He wanted to do the walk with us but he couldn't be here, so he was tracking his steps down in Ontario and we were logging them," said Andrea.
Last year at this time, D'Addario, 63, had a heart attack and required a quintuple bypass.
"Him being here is a really big thing," said Andrea.
"He wanted to tell all his friends at the gym that he walked to Tuk."
D'Addario used the stepper and bike machines at the gym to log most of his hours, she said.
"He set a goal for himself through this process, which was he wanted to climb as many steps a were in the CN Tower, and he's done that now," said Andrea.
"He's a part of it
tonight," said Scott.
They both said it was great their father got to do the walk with them. Andrea logged most of her minutes through walking and kickboxing, while Scott plays hockey five times a week and his cell phone tracked his steps.
"In the cold times of the year you want to stay in, you don't necessarily want to go out, but it gets you going," said Andrea.
Merle Carpenter, new to Inuvik since October, echoed that sentiment.
"It was by far worth being involved in," he said. "We even walked on the ice road a little bit, to make it official that we were actually walking to Tuk. It was fun."
This year was Inuvik's biggest so far in terms of participation in the program.
Twenty-three teams participated and 20 of them made it to Tuk, with some logging enough minutes to make it all the way back to Fort Providence too. In total, Inuvik participants walked over 56,000 kilometres.
"I think it's an easy thing to participate in, doesn't cost anything and is a good way to get people outside and walking during the coldest, darkest months," said Sheena Tremblay, coordinator for NWT Recreation and Parks Association. "I just hope that people continue to walk as a team or as a group through the spring."
