Pearl Lorentzen
Lakeside Leader

Some of the 2023 Arctic Winter Games tryouts for Team Alberta North will be in Slave Lake this fall and winter.

The games will be in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (Fort McMurray and area), January 29 to February 4, 2023.

On September 16 to 18, the U15 (boys) hockey tryouts will be in Slave Lake. On November 26, the arctic sports and the Dene games tryouts will be in Slave Lake.

Depending on snow, there may be some snowshoe tryouts in Slave Lake in December or early January. Some of the spots were filled in the spring.

Slave Lake has a long history with the games.

In 1994, Slave Lake hosted the Arctic Winter Games. Leading up to the 2020 Arctic Winter Games, some tryouts were in Slave Lake.

In March 2020, a Slave Lake ref, some athletes and others were all set to go to Whitehorse, Yukon for the Arctic Winter games, but these were cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alpine skiing and snowboarding tryouts were completed last winter. The following tryout locations are to be determined: archery and badminton.

The full list of sports are alpine skiing, archery, arctic sports, badminton, basketball, biathlon ski, biathlon snowshoe, cross-country ski, curling, Dene games, figure skating, futsal, gymnastics, hockey (male and female separate), snowboarding, snowshoeing, speed skating, volleyball, and wrestling.

The Arctic Winter Games 2023 website says, “The Wood Buffalo 2023 Arctic Winter Games include athletes from the Northwest Territories, Yukon, Nunavut, Alaska, Greenland, Nunavik (Northern Quebec), Northern Alberta, and the Indigenous people (Sami) of Norway, Sweden, and Finland.”

People living north of the 55th parallel in Alberta are eligible to try out for Team Alberta North.
In the M.D. of Lesser Slave River, the line is south of where Hwy. 2 meets Hwy. 44 south of Smith. It includes Smith and Hondo and everything north and west in the M.D., but not Chisholm or Flatbush.

It includes Slave Lake, Kinuso, and all of M.D. of Opportunity including Wabasca-Desmarais, Red Earth Creek, and nearby First Nations and Métis Settlements.

The boundary is south of Grande Prairie and Valleyview, north of Lac La Biche, so it is not included.