Photo Credit: (Hans Petter Sørensen / Courtesy Beringia Arctic Games)

Canadian athlete looks back at Beringia Arctic Games

Eye on the Arctic brings you stories and newsmakers from across the North

The inaugural Beringia Arctic game was held this summer in Chukotka, Russia.

On the third weekend in July, the small Arctic Russian community of Novo Chaplino welcomed participants from around the circumpolar world including Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Sapmi, Alaska, Nunavut, Norway and Denmark.

And though they came to compete in events like skin boat racing or traditional Inuit games like High Kick, many came away with much more than a medal.

“It was like going home,” said Johnny Issaluk, an Inuit games expert, actor and cultural ambassador from Canada’s eastern Arctic territory of Nunavut. “They live exactly the way I do, that my people do, it was astonishing.”

To find out more,  Eye on the Arctic’s Eilis Quinn spoke with Johnny Issaluk about the games and what it meant to compete in them:

Listen

Johnny Issaluk in the short film INUIT HIGH KICK (2010)

Inuit High Kick from Mark Hamilton on Vimeo.

Related stories from around the North: 

Canada: Inuk NHL star Jordin Tootoo stick giveaway video goes viral, CBC News

Greenland:  2016 Arctic Winter Games to cut 6 sports, CBC News

Russia:  Big hockey weekend for Eye on the Arctic community, Eye on the Arctic

Sweden: Arctic hockey team to wear rainbow jerseys all season in support of LGBT rights in sport, Radio Sweden

United States:  Passport troubles keep some athletes from Arctic Winter Games in Alaska, CBC News

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