The 2007 Canada Games Begin Way Up North in Whitehorse
The Canada Games is a high-level multi-sport event muti-sport event with a National Artists Program held every two years in Canada, alternating between the Canada Winter Games and the Canada Summer Games. Athletes are strictly amateur only, and represent their province or territory. Since their inception, the Canada Games have played a prominent role in developing some of Canada's premier athletes, including Lennox Lewis, Hayley Wickenheiser, Sidney Crosby, Steve Nash, and Suzanne Gaudet.
The Games were first held in 1967 in Quebec City as part of Canada's Centennial celebrations.
The year 2007 brings the Games north of the 60th Parallel for the first time (February 23-March 10). Whitehorse, Yukon is the host city, but the event, in fact, is a regional things. The Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut have joined together to make the 2007 Canada Winter Games a Pan Northern celebration.
In addition to the games themselves (21 sports ranging from hockey, curling and skiing to synchronized swimming, fencing and table tennis), there will also be cultural performances, a marketplace, exhibitions of northern art, and northern culinary delights. There's also be a special competition of Inuit Games and Dene Games.
As interesting as the games and surrounding events is the setting.
Whitehorse, a city of some 23,000, is the territorial capital of the Yukon. It lies at Historic Mile 918 (current kilometrepost calibration is kilometre 1,425.3) of the Alaska Highway and is the former terminus of the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway from Skagway, Alaska (although the rails are still there, the train only goes as far as Carcross now). At the head of navigation on the Yukon River, the city was an important supply and stage centre during the Klondike Gold Rush.
It has been the territorial capital since 1953, when the seat was moved from Dawson City after the construction of the Klondike Highway.
The city gets its name from the White Horse Rapids, which were said to look like the mane of a white horse. The rapids have disappeared under Schwatka Lake, behind a hydroelectric dam, which was completed in 1958.
Nowadays Whitehorse is a government town, and it is the home of the main campus of Yukon College. A $45 million (CAD) multiplex centre has been built for the games.
Like most of the Yukon, Whitehorse has a dry subarctic climate. But interstingly, winters there are warmer than some Canadian prairies cities. Whitehorse experiences annual temperature average daily highs of 21 °C (70 °F) in July and average daily lows of −22 °C (−7.6 °F) in January. Record high temperature was 34 °C (93 °F) in June 1969 and the lowest was −52 °C (−62 °F) in January 1947.
According to Meteorological Service of Canada, Whitehorse has the distinction of being Canada's driest city, mainly because it lies in the rain shadow of the Coast Mountains. Surprisingly, despite its relative cold, Whitehorse was ranked among Canadian cities with the most comfortable climate. There is little precipitation with an annual snowfall of 245 centimetres (4.75 ft) and 163 millimetres (6.4 inches) of rainfall.
For more info, see: http://www.jeuxducanada2007.ca/
Sources: Canada Games 2007; Whitehorse, Yukon; culture.ca; and wikipedia.org.
The Games were first held in 1967 in Quebec City as part of Canada's Centennial celebrations.
The year 2007 brings the Games north of the 60th Parallel for the first time (February 23-March 10). Whitehorse, Yukon is the host city, but the event, in fact, is a regional things. The Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut have joined together to make the 2007 Canada Winter Games a Pan Northern celebration.
In addition to the games themselves (21 sports ranging from hockey, curling and skiing to synchronized swimming, fencing and table tennis), there will also be cultural performances, a marketplace, exhibitions of northern art, and northern culinary delights. There's also be a special competition of Inuit Games and Dene Games.
As interesting as the games and surrounding events is the setting.
Whitehorse, a city of some 23,000, is the territorial capital of the Yukon. It lies at Historic Mile 918 (current kilometrepost calibration is kilometre 1,425.3) of the Alaska Highway and is the former terminus of the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway from Skagway, Alaska (although the rails are still there, the train only goes as far as Carcross now). At the head of navigation on the Yukon River, the city was an important supply and stage centre during the Klondike Gold Rush.
It has been the territorial capital since 1953, when the seat was moved from Dawson City after the construction of the Klondike Highway.
The city gets its name from the White Horse Rapids, which were said to look like the mane of a white horse. The rapids have disappeared under Schwatka Lake, behind a hydroelectric dam, which was completed in 1958.
Nowadays Whitehorse is a government town, and it is the home of the main campus of Yukon College. A $45 million (CAD) multiplex centre has been built for the games.
Like most of the Yukon, Whitehorse has a dry subarctic climate. But interstingly, winters there are warmer than some Canadian prairies cities. Whitehorse experiences annual temperature average daily highs of 21 °C (70 °F) in July and average daily lows of −22 °C (−7.6 °F) in January. Record high temperature was 34 °C (93 °F) in June 1969 and the lowest was −52 °C (−62 °F) in January 1947.
According to Meteorological Service of Canada, Whitehorse has the distinction of being Canada's driest city, mainly because it lies in the rain shadow of the Coast Mountains. Surprisingly, despite its relative cold, Whitehorse was ranked among Canadian cities with the most comfortable climate. There is little precipitation with an annual snowfall of 245 centimetres (4.75 ft) and 163 millimetres (6.4 inches) of rainfall.
For more info, see: http://www.jeuxducanada2007.ca/
Sources: Canada Games 2007; Whitehorse, Yukon; culture.ca; and wikipedia.org.
posted by eric model | 6:21 AM
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