March 9 2007, Kangiqsujuaq, Nunavik.
We arrived Monday February 26 at 16h30 in Kangiqsujuaq. This year, Marc Henry, a paraski racer and Hydro-Quebec worker based in Valleyfield, Remi Baril, a youth health program manager and my self had plan to be make this camp a dynamic camp with this very athletic community already initiated to paraski. Tuesday, The school was closed for the day. The weather, nice and windy, in the afternoon, we got to ride across Wakeham Bay to see the twenty feet ice-wall formed at low tide.

Wednesday; We finally meet in the morning with the school teachers to organized the schedule for the week. At one PM, the kids enjoyed the video presentation on last year initiation camp, here in Wakeham. From 3 to 5h, we organized the first initiation period with secondary classes with equipment own by the community. Most got to ride pretty well on the narrow space behing the coop with wind around 25km/h. We ended-up riding until down. Adamie, did perform exceptionally well. Thursday; Julie, Nadia, Shona and James's class got to learn the basic of sail handling. We could see that those initiated last spring ad not lost their touch even if the wind was going up and down between 7 to 15 km/h.

Friday; the school is closed for pedagogical day, and it is probably a good timing, since the 6 hockey teams in town, have just begin the hockey tournament. On the bay, the morning period was dedicated to Arsaniq school's seven stars of the week. Although the wind was very light, those who came down on the bay had fun playing in with sails and skis. Some of them took the time to learn some basic knowledge in GPS navigation with Mark Henry. Saturday; No wind, In the afternoon we got to try the Eastern Mountain in Alpine skiing to discover new extreme skiing potential as this large softly curved finger were hiding a fairly steep hill.

Sunday; the wind picked up at 10h and rapidly when up to 25 km/h. This long awaited gust rapidly attracted some local young passionate such as James and Popykaqtuk who are dedicated to learn this new sport, as well as visitors such as Charlie Munick form Kangiqsualujjuuaq, and other Ungava cup participants on brake for the morning, who also had the chance to try it out. All got to feal the excitement of wind, sail power and speed runs on Wakeham large flat bay.

At noon the wind picked-up to 35km, enough for hunter and expert paraskier Lukasi Tukirqi who just loves it when it's windy, like now, Carver Eze Saggiak also came down for his first try, and certainly not the last. In less than one hour, he was racing down with Lukasi along the ice wall at the other end of the bay. We also had the visit of Peter Qisiq, Kangiqsuajuaq team captain, who came down for a little warm up before winning the Ungava Cup Hockey finals later in the afternoon.
Up to 15 people came down to enjoy the strong wind and the cold weather that was slowly coming back. Overall about 55 people got to train in paraski over the week, a good stimulating session to kick off the spring season in the community.

Learn more about paraskiing in Kangiqsujuaq.