By Stephen Hendrie
Beatrice Deer is a well known singer from Quaqtaq, now living in Dorval. She has recorded several albums and performs in Nunavik and beyond. She’s also a fitness advocate and shares her workouts on her Facebook page.
“Lots of Inuit tell me, in-person and on social media, ‘I’m inspired by you. I started exercising because of what you post on social media.’ They ask me questions on how to start a healthy lifestyle.”
Her video reels on her Facebook page include clips of her with her personal trainer, and some solo, going through her routines with comments on the videos, all of them short and inspirational.
“I had a baby three years ago and I gained a lot of weight,” she says. “The whole post-partum experience has a huge effect on a woman’s body, and people don’t talk about that. I put comparison videos up. People notice the changes from like a year ago to now, and the change is pretty drastic. I keep saying it’s all consistency, and eating is just as important, because it’s 80 per cent what we eat and 20 per cent physical exercise.”
She was thrilled when news came early in the summer of 2024 that Team Nunavik-Quebec (TNQ) would become a permanent member of the Arctic Winter Games (AWG). It means we can now send teams to the AWG.
“That’s absolutely incredible,” said Beatrice. “Anything team related is so important, for us emotionally as human beings because we need to connect with other people. We need people to encourage us, and we need to do the same thing – it’s reciprocal. And when we create these teams, we’re not just creating teams for sports, we’re creating friendships and bonds and memories and experiences.”
In a joint press release between the AWG and the Kativik Regional Government (KRG) it noted the change would take effect as of January 1, 2025. Team Nunavik-Quebec was there in 1972, 1974, 1976 and 1986, and has participated biennially since 2000.
“Joining the Arctic Winter Games International Committee as a permanent member is a moment of history for our youth and our region,” said Hilda Snowball, Chairperson of KRG. “We showcased the incredible skill, talent and resilience of our athletes and performers for decades as a guest member. Being a permanent member reinforces our commitment to athletic excellence and cultural exchange that support the continued success of the AWG.”
Chris Martin is the Recreation Technical Assistance and Development Advisor for the Department of Recreation at KRG. He’s competed at the AWG many times, notably in the Dene Games, and now attends as a Mission Staff, watching his oldest son Connor, and TNQ compete. He tells a story of being recruited when he was 16 by coach Alan Brown back in 2001 during the AWG trials in Kuujjuaq. Chris is a big guy – 6’3” 280 pounds – and was benching three plates. Brown spotted him and said, “Get over there! You’re on the team!” he said laughing. His reaction to the TNQ news was first rate.
“Honestly, it kind of brought a tear to me eye, not gonna lie,” he said with a laugh. “It expands a lot of what we can offer, and helps to popularize sports within the region more. It can push that agenda to help people to live a healthy lifestyle. We’re all prone to our bad habits, but when you know you’ve got an international competition coming up, you’re going to take that seriously.”
Meanwhile, at Makivvik, Willis Tagoona has been on the job as the new Sports and Youth Initiatives Coordinator. Willis grew up in Kuujjuaq, playing hockey, basketball, soccer, and volleyball. He worked as a phys-ed teacher at Jaanimmarik for 10 years. He was also thrilled with the news.
“This is huge. I’m so excited for Nunavik and where it’s going to take us in terms of competing and growing as a contingent,” said Willis. “We’ve been a small group for many years, because we weren’t a part of team sports – and as we all know hockey is huge – and I do believe that Nunavik has the talent in order to compete against the other contingents.”
Over on the Hudson Bay coast, Deseray Cumberbatch is an athlete and coach focussed on the Inuit games. Her day job is recruiting Inuit to work at the Raglan Nickel Mine. Two weeks on, two weeks off, fly-in fly-out (FIFO). “Athletes in Nunavik – we’re capable,” she stressed. “Having a say in which sports that we want to compete in, I think that’s really important, because we have a voice too, and us being a permanent team, it’s really important. I’m really excited for Nunavik.”
Beatrice Deer sees a deeper meaning. Fitness was her path to becoming sober over a decade ago. “I needed something else to occupy my time. And the more I did it the more rewarding it was, especially when I was seeing the benefits. I first started with walking, and taking the stairs at work, instead of the elevator. I started trying to eat better, and looking at social media, what fit people eat. I cut out pop and juice, and just by doing that I started losing weight pretty quickly.”
Chris Martin talks about this as well. “It’s called a ‘protective factor’. These are the things that will help you be resilient, and will help you bounce back from tough times,” he said. “If you’re a teenager, these are the things that will help you avoid getting into drugs and alcohol too much, and will help you to avoid suicide, and stuff like that.”
It’s a fact that exercising, even just taking a walk, releases endorphins and serotonins in the brain. These hormones naturally help improve mood, cognition, and concentration. “Oh yes!” says Beatrice. “That’s one of the main reasons that I exercise is to keep my mental health in check, because we release so much tension by exercising, and our brain releases happy hormones.”
Imagining a Team Nunavik-Quebec hockey team at the next AWG in Whitehorse, Yukon, in 2026 brings smiles to the faces of Chris and Willis. “We have a pretty good idea of who our top players are in the region,” says Willis. “So running the tournaments within the region, building on that, having training camps.”
“We’d be working alongside organizations like Makivvik,” says Chris. “We’d be trying to identify a core group, or team that we can build off of. It’s not just about the teams for this coming games, it’s about what groundwork can we put into that team that we can play off and spin into the next games, and the next games after that, sort of thing.”
In Inukjuak, Deseray looks forward to teaching athletes Inuit Games. “I coached Inuit games, and I love teaching Inuit games. I have the passion to teach Inuit games, like a lot of physical activities, but especially Inuit games.”
Deseray says she works out at the gym in Inukjuak, at the arena. She says there’s also a community gym. Chris and Willis both noted there isn’t an inventory of fitness infrastructure across Nunavik, covering gyms, community centres, and arenas, but this news may spark renewed interest in that. “To me it means we can harness that, we can harness that excitement,” said Chris. “Part of what I want to do is to have my team travel to the communities to see what each community has, what they’re lacking, to get a better understanding of what’s available for each community,” said Willis.
Beatrice, in Dorval, has access to a big gym, and personal trainer. When she’s in Kuujjuaq she goes to Inuk Strength Gym located at the Kuujjuaq Forum. She has nothing but praise for Jeff Gordon, who started the gym a few years ago. “I’m so proud of this young man who opened a gym,” said Beatrice.
During a summer when we watched Olympians in Paris, Nunavik athletes can start to look forward to a much larger contingent at the AWG in 2026 in Whitehorse, Yukon. Beatrice, Willis, Chris, and Deseray all said they’d be watching the Olympics with excitement. Deseray imagined what it would be like to be in the games, “I would compete in track and field, running!”
Further Browsing
Beatrice Deer’s workouts are on her band’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/BeatriceDeer/reels/
Full results from the 2024 AWG held in the Mat-Su Valley, Alaska, are online here:
https://www.awg2024.org/ulunews
Inuk Strength Gym in Kuujjuaq Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InukStrength
