Native Youth Olympics

     Coming from Lincoln where there are so many opportunities for kids to get involved in sports, it's been a real eye-opener at the big effort made by the district to give our students the same opportunities as those I see at home. To begin with, there are many villages like Pilot Point that are only accessible by air. It has to be a huge undertaking for a team to visit another village for a game. Players almost always stay overnight and then there is the cost and time involved in flying to another town. Sports that are available here include basketball, volleyball & the Native Youth Olympics (NYO) for both boys and girls. In the case of this little village, there are not enough students to field a team so opportunities are even more limited. To offset this problem, the district, which consists of 12 remote village schools, hosts three jamborees a year; a volleyball jamboree in the fall, a basketball jamboree in the winter, and an Athletics & Academics jamboree in the spring. One of our students Michael will be flying to Egegik tomorrow where he will be assigned to a team that will play in a round robin basketball tournament. In addition to the games, there are also chances to discuss what's happening in your school,  social mixers, and a dance. I'm guessing Michael is going more for the party than his intense desire to play basketball! 

At the spring AA jamboree, the grand finale will be the district prom!

A major activity in the spring AA jamboree is the Native Youth Olympics prelims. I have found the NYO to be a fascinating event. It is an annual competition of youth in a series of games that honor their cultural heritage by demonstrating skills needed by Alaskan natives to demonstrate hunting & survival skills.

Some of the NYO games include:

The stick pull-a strengthening activity involving a Crisco smeared stick to mimic a skill used by native hunters to prepare themselves to pull a seal out of the water

The kneel jump- an activity involving agility & balance used by early natives to jump from ice flow to ice flow

The seal hop-while maintaining the push up position, students hop across the floor on their toes and knuckles to mimic the position taken by seal hunters as they camouflaged themselves from their prey while moving across the ice

In the past, Pilot Point has had several NYO competitors, but unfortunately does not have any this year. I'm attaching a couple of pictures at the bottom-these are not Pilot Point kids but are good images of what the competition might look like.

I also got to meet the principal yesterday. She flew in after lunch, spent the day dealing with normal school paperwork, conducted a community/parent meeting in the evening (kind of like PTA) and signed the employee time sheets. She flew out this afternoon. There is an apartment for itinerant personnel attached to Rachel & Matt's house. It is used by administrators, special ed teachers and the school counselor as they breeze in and out. They bring their own bedding & food. You'd hardly know anyone was here. Can't imagine a job like that!