Traditional Skills Inform Today's Games: Native Youth Olympics promote strength, endurance, good sportsmanship.

• Author: Orr, Vanessa

Each year, approximately 2,000 students statewide take part in Native Youth Olympics (NYO) junior and senior games, athletic contests based on skills crucial to Alaska Natives people's traditional way of life. More than just a display of athletic prowess, the events focus on promoting healthy lifestyles, positive self-esteem, leadership skills, and good sportsmanship through friendly athletic competition.

Now in its 51st year. Cook Inlet Tribal Council (CITC) has been hosting the games since 1986, and NYO remains an active program within its Youth Empowerment Services Department.

"Our CITC staff, along with volunteers, provide all of the logistical and event planning support, fundraising, and marketing and promotion for the event and related activities each year," says Tim Blum, senior marketing and communications specialist for CITC. "It's a huge effort."

Native Youth Olympics got its start in 1971 when a group of students in the Boarding Home Program school in Anchorage couldn't return home for Christmas break.

"Some families couldn't afford to fly their children back to their communities for the holidays, and one of the host parents asked the students what they would do if they were home," explains Nicole Johnson, Native Youth Olympics ambassador and head official, "The students said that they would play these traditional games, and that became the start of the first NYO, which would take place later that spring."

In its first year, twelve schools participated, with athletes coming in from Sitka and Nome. The number increased each year, and now students from more than 100 communities throughout Alaska, and even a team from Canada, attend.

The games right before COVID-19 hit attracted NYO's highest number of athletes ever, Johnson says, with 493 athletes from Alaska and a small team from Whitehorse participating in the Senior Games. In-person games were cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19, yet 280 students from across Alaska participated virtually in the 2021 senior games, as did 140 junior NYO athletes.

Survival Sports

Students participate in two separate events: the junior games held each winter, and the senior games held each April. Junior athletes are in grades 1-6, split into three age divisions, and senior athletes are in grades 7-12. "As students get older, the games get harder," says Johnson.

The games are based on traditional skills needed for hunting and fishing, with a priority placed on athletes' willingness to help one another.

Depending on whether they are competing at the junior or senior level, athletes may take part in up to ten events: the Alaskan high kick...