Yukoners back from North American Orienteering Championships with hardware
Yukon was well represented at the biennial North American Orienteering Championships in New Hampshire.
Territory will host 2018 competition
Yukon was well represented at the biennial North American Orienteering Championships in New Hampshire.
A well-rounded team of 11made the trip to Dartmouth College, which hosted the competition.
Dartmouth claims it is the birthplace of orienteering in North America. Seventy-five years ago it held a Tiedust, in which Darmouth fraternities competed against each other in the first orienteering competition in the U.S, the Rauner Special Collections Library wrote in a post on their blog.
A team from Phi Gamma Delta won that first event, reported The Dartmouth on Nov. 21, 1941, which was hosted by Finnish Army Lieutenant Piltti Heiskanen, who was on campus teaching military skiing.
According to the blog post, after the attacks on Pearl Harbour the winning team entered the military.
The maps included in this year鈥檚 competition were incredibly detailed, said Team Yukon鈥檚 Jennifer MacKeigan.
鈥淚 actually bought a compass because our long map had so much detail,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here was a lot of technical racing.鈥�
MacKeigan, who competed in the middle (17th), long (18th) and sprint (19th) races, didn鈥檛 have the competition she was hoping for.
鈥淚 didn鈥檛 have a great one there, but I definitely took away what I need to work on,鈥� she said.
Results from the Canadian senior team were good enought to win them the BK trophy, which is awarded to the top country at NAOC.
鈥淚t鈥檚 been awhile since it was in Canada,鈥� said MacKeigan.
Top Yukon performances included Afan Jones, sweeping his races in the men鈥檚 60+ division, Ross Burnett going two- one-two in the middle, long and sprint, Leif Blake posting second (middle) and third (long) places, Pia Blake taking second in the long and Nesta Leduc winning first in the middle and second in the long and the sprint.
Yukon will host the 2018 NAOC.
鈥淚t鈥檚 going to be a big event,鈥� said MacKeigan. 鈥淚鈥檓 really excited to show people our amazing maps.
鈥淚鈥檓 excited to show people that yes, orienteering is a big sport in the Yukon and we have a lot of potential here and we can expand even more.鈥�
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