New Sport Hall of Fame to honour N.W.T. athletes

Two Olympic cross-country skiers, a founder of the Arctic Winter Games anda long-distance canoe race team will be inducted into the newN.W.T. Sport Hall of Fame Friday in Yellowknife.

The hall of fame is an initiative of the N.W.T's Sport North Federation.

Skiers Sharon Firth and Shirley Firth-Larsson will be inducted under the athlete category, co-founder of the Arctic Winter Games Stuart Hodgson will be inducted under the builder category, and N.W.T.s team from the 1967 Centennial Voyageurs race will be inducted under the team category.

The Firth sisters represented Canada in four consecutive Winter Olympics from 1972 to 1984.

"We've been in this sport for over 20 years through thick and thin and we've been through many good times and bad times, and hardships, and you know we survived it all," said Sharon Firth.

Then-N.W.T. Commissioner Stuart Hodgson co-founded the Arctic Winter Games in 1969 with Yukon Commissioner James Smith and Alaska Governor Walter Hickel. Today athletes from theN.W.T., Alaska, Yukon, Nunavut, Nunavik, Northern Alberta, Greenland and Russia compete in the games every two years.

The 10 men who made uptheN.W.T.s team in the Centennial Voyageurs race paddled a canoe more than 5,000 km from Rocky Mountain House, Alta., to Montreal in the summer of 1967. They finished in eighth place, ahead of Yukon and Nova Scotia.

The ceremony will take place Friday at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre.