Northern Winter/Arctic Sports Games

[shootingstar]

Dropped by Northern House (West Hastings & Seymour) to see their exhibits. Governments of Nunavut, Yukon and Northwest Territories are showcasing their respective territories during the Olympics.

A real cool exhibit that features Inuit sculptures of traditional Arctic sports. I'm really glad that this is being shown to the rest of the world from Canada because it IS part of Canada and related to sports. We have a great deal to learn about the Canadian Arctic.

*In Whitehorse, Yukon there are regular cyclists during the winter. You must remember temp. go down way below -40 C. The exhibit docet/interpreter told me that she noticed alot more cyclists now than past decades. Wow. My partner reminded that Whitehorse has 2% cycling mode share....that's more than Metro Vancouver which is just over 1% which includes all suburbs. City of Vancouver is approx. 3.6 to 3.7% cycling mode share.

*the tiny flowers in tundra change colours quickly because growing season is so short. 1 wk. a person could be driving down highway and see yellow tundra. Next wk. it's bluish tundra. 3rd wk. it's purplish tundra.

Free admission. Open now until March. There will live performers.
Schedule will be updated here: http://www.canadasnorth.com/

Glad I saw the art exhibit which included a wall hanging of muskox hair tufts that were dyed, amongst the soapstone sculptures.

Oh yea, a traditional Inuit sport is sittuqtaaq: it's squatting on 1 leg for as long as you can.

Or aqraoraq- high kick ball. Which is kicking hanging sealskin ball with 1 foot, while flipping your body nearly upside down.

Then there's doing a handstand with 1 hand on ground and upside down, kick the ball with 1 foot.

must of been tons of energy burned inside the igloos.

Exhibit didn't indicate what traditional sport Inuit women, did beyond the famed throat singing.