Competitors welcome return of North American native games
Pjilasi. Welcome. Thousands of athletes are about to experience Pjila’si for the first time as the 10th edition of the North American Indigenous Games kicks off in Atlantic Canada.
The event is the first since 2017 due to cancellations due to COVID. It will run from July 16 to 23 in and near Kjipuktuk (Halifax), Dartmouth, Millbrook First Nation and Sipekne’katik, the traditional Mi’kma’ki area of Nova Scotia. It will be the largest Indigenous gathering in the history of Atlantic Canada and CBC will cover everything, including 1500 hours of streamed events.
“More than welcome, Pjila’si means: we’ll save you a seat at the table,” said Brendon Smithson, CEO of NAIG. “These games have been postponed for three years and that seat is still waiting for you.”
NAIG is sometimes described as “The Indigenous Olympics,” with 750 countries coming together, more than three times the 200 that will compete in next summer’s Paris Olympics. NAIG is all about friendly rivalry, meeting new competitors, learning new strategies and new languages.
Like the Olympics, NAIG is multi-disciplinary, with competition in 16 sports, including canoe/kayak, archery and lacrosse. And like the Olympic Games, the host communities are always proud to share their culture. NAIG athletes and their families and chaperones are immersed in a scene rich in indigenous food, art, music, dance and fashion. Traditional practices are shared and mixed with modern materials and ideas.
LOOK | An athlete returns, 6 years after her NAIG debut:
Kacey Young will join more than 5,000 athletes in Halifax’s Mi’kmaq territory next month for the first NAIG since 2017.
NAIG is its own beautiful thing. It is also one of the success stories of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 calls to action. NAIG is living proof that sport is a path to reconciliation.
Smithson saw it happen.
“My players from teams I coached still have friends I made years and years earlier at NAIG,” he said. “And when you travel later in life, the friends you get to see in those faraway places? It’s amazing. Huge connections and bonds have been formed.”
NAIG is also a logistical challenge. Just getting the chance to compete is not a sure thing. In southern and eastern Ontario, qualifiers were often held in prohibitively remote towns and some teams were unable to make the 16-hour round trip to the nearest tryouts.
Basketball coach Gerry Benoit understands the discontent, but he says it was caused by a deliberate plan to give more northern communities a better chance to participate. This is difficult with limited resources.
Benoit, who coaches a NAIG team for U14 boys, shares a quick memory of his own experience at that age. When he and his brother were kids in eastern Ontario, they were the only native students in their high school. While other players relaxed in the “off season”, Benoit called it “the good season” and worked hard on his basketball game.
He said he came back to some racist taunts and stupidity on a September. Benoit went one-on-one against his main bully, who learned the hard way that Benoit had developed a left-handed dunk over the summer.
Inspirational stories like these are everywhere at NAIG. Today’s participants will take the memories and lessons to the younger children to come.
Lacrosse is getting bigger and bigger
Tania Cameron, from Kenora, Treaty 3 Territory, builds and shares sports knowledge widely. The six-team basketball manager joins NAIG with sons Daniel, an apprentice basketball coach for the U19 men, and Josh, a team coach. Both have participated in NAIG in the past, as has their sister.
Proud of her own family, Cameron can also be proud that at least 21 athletes from her teams have also qualified for other sports at NAIG.
Lacrosse has always been an important part of NAIG. Kevin Sandy was the former CEO of the Halifax 2020 NAIG host organization and is currently a director of Haudenosaunee Lacrosse. Although he won’t be coaching this time, Sandy rubs his hands in anticipation of the tournament about to begin.
Sandy said teams to watch include The Six Nations, British Columbia, New York’s Haudenosaunee and the Eastern Doors. Sandy said the main thing is that after six years of practice, teams are not ready. The anticipation levels are off the hook
