Olympic History is Made in Alert

Sunday November 8th saw Olympic history being made as the Olympic Torch arrived in Alert, Nunavut, the northern-most permanently occupied settlement on the planet, and the furthest north the iconic flame has ever been.

As a member of the Olympic Torch Planning Committee, I was slated with the daunting task of constructing a temporary stage in the gymnasium for "community" celebrations to take place as the Olympic Torch was being carried from the runway to the station. Making the task even more challenging was the fact that a month prior to the torch's arrival, construction was being done on the carpentry shop, effectively restricting my access and the station carpenter, Chipper, was on leave until 2 days before the torch was scheduled to arrive. Needless to say, the last 2 weeks leading up to the OTR were hectic with virtually every free hour of mine being allocated to constructing a stage which (fingers crossed) would not collapse while on live television!

In addition to station-wide Olympic-themed sporting events, teams were tasked with constructing snow sculptures to show off the spirit in Alert and assist in propelling your team to Olympic gold. My team, Quatchi (named after the Sasquatch Olympic mascot), constructed a statue of our namesake playing his favourite sport, hockey.

As impressive as I thought our sculpture was, the winning sculpture blew ours out of the water as you'll see. The mastermind Gilbert obviously had some formal training in snow sculpting so I'll forever have an asterisk beside this amateur event.

Finally the day came, Saturday November 7th, when I was finished construction on the stage. The completion, however, didn't come without a price, one left thumbnail to be exact.

Despite my ruined movie-rating-tools, I still managed to practice biweekly with the choir leading up to that day, over a month of preparation for a just over 3 minute performance.

One sleep later and the moment had finally arrived, the Olympic Flame was officially in Alert, and within an hour of the Vancouver Olympic Committee's plane landing, the torch was making its trip up the runway to the station while the remainder of the station and reporters partook in the community celebrations in the gym.

Unfortunately, as 22 of the stations 50-odd personnel were running the torch, and many other assisting with lighting and other tasks, the "community" was a little sparse. In spite of this, the community celebrations including the Inuit Games went off without a hitch and were enjoyed by all present.
First on the agenda was a brief history lesson of the station accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation including photos as old as 50 years showing much tougher arctic expedition patrons sporting shorts and t-shirts playing field hockey outside. Then the spotlight was turned to some of the local Inuit contingent participating with other members of the station, including myself, in traditional Inuit games. The first game, the arm pull, was a bit of a mismatch for myself as I outweighed everyone in the competition easily by 100lbs. The setup of the game was to interlock arms with your opponent and hold down each others feet as you try and pull your opponent toward you and touch your back to the ground first.

Following this was the Kick the Fish, or High Kick competition, where traditionally a fish or bone is suspended from a string and each contestant is given 3 tries to kick the fish and land on the same foot with which they kick the object, combining both athleticism and balance. Again having almost a foot extra in reach I was at a distinct advantage but Paul was awesome in keeping up to what was eventually declared (due to time constraints) a draw.

Once the celebrations were over, we got on our arctic gear and awaited the torchbearers and the arrival of the torch at the cauldron. Of course this could not be done without first a reminder from the corporate sponsors of Coke and RBC of their commitment to Canada's Olympic dreams throughout the ages and how proud everyone should be of their country (I trailed off mid-speech as I got thirsty and was thinking about setting up an interest free savings account).

At last the torch arrived and the very modern cauldron was lit much to the enjoyment of the throng of 70+ people gathered under the arctic stars.

This was followed by some antics by the lovable mascot Quatchi, lots of photos and a couple more speeches.

Then, rather anticlimactically, everyone was brought back inside for the awe-inspiring performance by the largest per-capita choir in Canada, and a few more (extremely unorganized) speeches.

Finally, the cauldron was extinguished and a celebratory fireworks display performed to a rapidly dwindling audience rushing to get back inside to regain the feeling in their hands and feet.And so Olympic history was made, and the OTR in Alert was finally history! For the first time in weeks I was able to sit down and talk during meals, watch an episode of Chuck and even go to the gym! Next up, Remembrance day!

Byron

Cette flame, ce phare boreal!