Prince Albert teams dominate games

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The setting couldn't have been any better. With the heavy rains from early summer a distant memory, the 1994 Saskatchewan Indian Summer Games opened under clear skies, intense heat and more than 800 enthusiastic athletes from across the province.

"These games are a very important part of our history," said Federation of Saskatchewan Indians vice-chief Eugene Arcand at the opening ceremonies here on July 25. "They were originally put together to promote alternative lifestyles and 20 years later they are still doing that."

The games featured activities ranging from athletics to cultural components. The athletic portion had participants competing in track and field, soccer and football in peewee, bantam, midget and juvenile age divisions for boys and girls. The week-long extravaganza ran in conjunction with an archery camp held to determine Saskatchewan's representatives at the 1995 North American Indigenous Games in Bemidji, Minn.

"Team Saskatchewan is being built right now," said Arcand. "This year you are competing against each other. Next year you will be teammates."

The cultural activities of the games provided visitors with traditional skills of First Nations people. Included in the demonstrations were bannock making, birchbark biting, fish smoking, beaver and muskrat skinning, shawl making, beading, and story telling.

"The cultural component to the games is very educational for the First Nations and non-Aboriginal people," commented Prince Albert Churchill MP Gordon Kirby at the opening ceremonies. "Hopefully (the games) help build bridges between First Nations and non-Aboriginal communities."

The events also opened inter-tribal doors, said one organizer.

"There are Indian people from other tribes and nations," noted games' manager Lorna Arcand. "So we will have the opportunity to learn about each other - our differences and our similarities."

Eight provincial councils each bought a contingent of athletes to the Games in an attempt to win the overall points title.

The host team from the Prince Alberta Tribal Council took the lead at the half-way point and never looked back as they accumulated 313.5 points to cruise to a first-place finish.

Saskatoon Tribal Council was second with 284 points followed closely by Touchwood File Hills - Qu'Appelle Tribal Council at 281.5. Meadow Lake Tribal

Council was fourth with 257 points while Yorkton Tribal Council was next at 155.

North Battleford Tribal Council amassed 134 points for sixth place followed by Shellbrook Agency Chiefs Tribal Council with 74 points and South East Treaty 4

Tribal Council with 15 points.

The medal race had Saskatoon winning the most gold medals with 30, but Prince Albert once again took home the most medals overall accumulating 18 gold, 27 silver and 19 bronze.

The divisional categories were interesting in that only one of the four age classes was won by the two overall leaders.

Saskatoon accumulated 76 points in the peewee division to walk away from the rest of the competition. Prince Albert was a distant second with 49 points followed by Yorkton with 36.

The bantam and midget age classes were won by Meadow Lake while Touchwood-File Hills Qu'Appelle dominated the juvenile events.