And so life has returned to normal in Hay River and the population has decreased by more than 1,000 people or so.
That's because the 2025 edition of the NWT Track and Field Championships are over. Everything wrapped up on Friday afternoon with the award presentations and it was St. Pat's High School of Yellowknife which ended up as the grand aggregate champions this year, signifying the overall winners of the meet.
The grand aggregate is determined by taking the total points scored by a team for each top-six finish and dividing it by the number of team members to come up with an average score.
Everything got underway beneath a sunny sky and warmth on June 4 with the long-distance events and some of the field events for the older competitors. The first records of the championships fell on opening day as Amy MacDonald of the Hay River Track Club set the new mark in the womenSA国际影视传媒檚 5,000-metre event, winning in a time of 22:27.
The other new benchmarks included Louisa Henry of William McDonald School breaking the record in the 13U girls high jump and Belle Smith of Hay River setting the new distance in the 13U girls triple jump with a leap of 9.35 metres.
In total, eight records were broken over the course of the meet.
In all, a total of 1,039 athletes were at this yearSA国际影视传媒檚 championships with teams from 12 different communities. The largest contingent hailed from Yellowknife's William McDonald School with 121 athletes, while Alexis Arrowmaker School from Wekweeti had the smallest team in the competition with just one athlete entered.
Conditions were less than favourable on June 5 with clouds, cooler weather and a heavier concentration of forest fire smoke in the air. That smoke led to a postponement of the proceedings at around midday Thursday, which lasted around 20 minutes after officials deemed it acceptable to resume.
JJ Hirst, co-chair of the meet's steering committee, said it didn't matter what the conditions were because the competitors have faced worse.
Overall, Hirst said he was pleased with the proceedings.
SA国际影视传媒淚SA国际影视传媒檝e always said we have the toughest kids in the world,SA国际影视传媒� he said. SA国际影视传媒淭heySA国际影视传媒檒l run through snow, sleet, rain, whatever gets thrown at them. Our volunteers do such a great job and theySA国际影视传媒檙e making sure they still have their spot from the year before. They just do an amazing job.SA国际影视传媒�
If there were any hiccups to be had, Hirst said no one would've known because it was being handled behind the scenes with very capable people making the fix.
"It's run the way it should," he said. "There are things that happen behind the scenes, but everyone just pushes through and if you were to ask anyone, it went as usual."
