Indigenous representation ‘really limited’ at Canada Games
The Northwest Territories have 95 athletes competing in the Canada Winter Games on Prince Edward Island. How many are indigenous?
The answer is not clear. The ethnicity of athletes after selection for Team NT is not tracked and Sport North, which oversees the team at the Games, said it was uncertain whether Indigenous residents were underrepresented.
Sport North chief executive Bill Othmer said it was difficult to estimate “as we don’t know the number of Indigenous participants”.
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Team Yukon interviewed athletes and coaches after being asked by Cabin Radio for details on the team’s representation. An official emailed that the Yukon team consists of 178 athletes and, in response to the survey, 20 athletes and six coaches who have identified themselves as indigenous. Team Nunavut said via email that out of 38 athletes at the Games, 33 identified themselves as Indigenous.
Reese Wainman and Tamara Bain are two of Team NT’s Indigenous athletes. Both hail from Inuvik and represent the territory in curling.
“I think representation is really limited,” Wainman said.
“It’s kind of just us and then a bunch of other people, but we definitely didn’t see many.”
Bain said a lack of Indigenous athletes at the Games is depriving those back home of a role model.
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“When we watch bigger people curling, we don’t see indigenous people who play in these big leagues and have made it big in curling,” she told Cabin Radio.
“So who should our role models be? Who do we look up to?”
Systemic lack of access
Groups known as TSOs—territorial sporting organizations like NWT Curling or Cross Country NWT—select the athletes who compete as Team NT in events like the Canada Games. The selection procedures vary depending on the sport.
Cross Country NWT President David Mahon said he believes the problem is systemic.
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“By the time athletes become teenagers, there’s been a lot going on there,” Mahon said.
He noted the examples of facilities and trainers that are more readily available in larger communities like Yellowknife than elsewhere.
“You may not have the coach who really gets you excited about the sport, or you may not have the peer support that athletes have at Yellowknife,” he said.
Especially when it comes to skiing, says Mahon, many young athletes feel that being part of a ski club is a “big attraction”. But there are only four of those, in Yellowknife, Hay River, Fort Smith, and Inuvik.
He said Cross Country NWT is running programs to try to expand access to skiing beyond the club system so young people in smaller communities can at least get a taste of what’s possible in Yellowknife.
One such program includes ski camps at Sahtu.
“We’ve been running it for a couple of years now, trying to get kids on the skis and making sure the gear is in the community,” he said.
In 2015, five of the 94 calls by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission addressed barriers between indigenous peoples and access to sport.
“We have to work to break down those barriers,” Mahon said, although he added that like Sport North, Cross Country NWT cannot say how many of its 10 athletes at the Canadian Winter Games are Indigenous because ethnicity is not tracked.
“We would certainly like to see more Indigenous athletes, and I think we need to take steps – and we’re taking some steps – to address that,” he said, referring to a program this year that would increase access to the ski program in smaller ones Expanding communities through Sport Canada funding, which aims to make sport more inclusive and accessible.
Yellowknife is the main source for athletes
The majority of Team NT athletes at this year’s Canada Games are reportedly from Yellowknife. Wainman and Bain said they were particularly aware of this.
“This week the only people at the Canada Winter Games from Inuvik are our team of four and one other man,” Wainman said.
The two curlers believe it has to do with the funding and opportunities available in a bigger city like Yellowknife and discuss the effort it took to make it to the Games.
“There isn’t much money. We do all of our financing ourselves,” Bain said.
“We do it, but many smaller communities don’t because they don’t have the time or the resources. Even we in Inuvik probably get more opportunities than some of the smaller communities, and we still feel the difference between us and Yellowknife.
“Take hockey for example, there are many hockey players in Inuvik, but only one person made it to Team NT and everyone else is from Yellowknife.”
Wainman emphasized the importance of having access to the coaching and support needed to reach Canada Games level.
“We get our money and then we have it to train and go to those games and everything. But we also have a really good coach who supports us in this,” she said, referring to Inuvik-based coach Nick Saturnino.
“A lot of other people might not have that,” Wainman said.
Mahon noted that Team NT’s composition changes by event. At the Arctic Winter Games in Fort McMurray in January – where organizers specifically encourage broad participation among northern communities, as opposed to the emphasis on elite sport at the Canada Games – he said: “We definitely saw more participants from across the area. ”
Skiers selected for the Arctic Winter Games included three athletes from Fort Good Hope and one from Fort Smith.
But there are concerns there too.
Deh Cho MLA Ron Bonnetrouge said in the NWT Legislative this month that Team NT at the Arctic Winter Games did not include athletes from communities he represents, such as Kakisa, Enterprise or the Kátł’odeeche First Nation.
He asked Shane Thompson – the Minister for Local and Community Affairs, who is responsible for sport, recreation and ultimately Team NT – how small communities are being helped prepare for the Games.
Thompson said the regional coordinators “are actively involved in getting information out to all communities.”
He assured Bonnetrouge that information about the selection process and deadline has been shared with all NWT communities on multiple occasions. However, Bonnetrouge said that simply sharing information is not enough.
“It’s just not going to work,” he said.
The minister, in turn, said recreational staff travel to communities, while places like Fort Simpson and Fort Providence have regularly hosted regional processes ahead of big games.
Thompson and the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs could not be reached for comment on this article.
‘Do not give up’
Wainman and Bain, who were also on Team NT at the Arctic Winter Games, hope participating in the Canada Games can inspire other indigenous athletes in the NWT to keep trying.
“Don’t give up just because you don’t see indigenous people represented,” Bain said.
“Don’t think you can’t make it because you can’t see them. Stay motivated and know you can do it.”
Othmer said via email that Sport North – which is funded by the NWT government to oversee Team NT at major games – “supports the territorial sports organizations, which are the sports governing bodies that inform their athletes about their respective selection policies/- identify processes”.
He wrote that “indigenous representation quotas” were not a requirement for territorial sports organizations, but said athletes’ ethnicity would be tracked going forward.
The next opportunity for youngsters to compete on Team NT is the North American Indigenous Games in Halifax this summer.
For this event, the team is managed by the Aboriginal Sports Circle NWT. No one from this group was available for comment this week.
Editor’s note: Two Cabin Radio employees, Ollie Williams and Sarah Pruys, are volunteers with Team NT at the 2023 Canada Games and also serve as administrative staff for Cross Country NWT. This article was created by other members of the editorial team.