“I started from grief, and now [sports are] one of my favorite things to do,” Makayla Kaludjak confides. She is from Rankin Inlet and is representing Team Nunavut at the Arctic Winter Games for the third time. She played futsal on the U15 team the first time and the second time she played ice hockey.

She got her start playing sports when she was young because she was very active. Always wanting to try everything and anything, she would attend practices for whatever friends and family would tell her about. After her father passed away, she tried to keep busy. The more she went to sports, the more she enjoyed them and the more her skills improved.

For the next Arctic Winter Games, Kaludjak is looking at competing for volleyball. She’s competed at the North American Indigenous Games for volleyball and enjoyed it. “Volleyball has been my number one sport lately!” she exclaims. She’s been inspired to play at such a high level by an athlete named Stacey JC Jones who played hockey, soccer, and volleyball. Watching her play everything inspired her to do the same.

As a very active athlete, playing almost daily, Kaludjak started to develop a sore knee which made it hard to play. Being active on a sore knee was painful but she pushed through, telling herself, “This is what I want to do, and I love this. It's not gonna bother me anymore. I'm not gonna let it bother me.” Pushing the pain away, she still struggled. Now, she rarely has issues with knee pain unless she’s been too active.

When it comes to staying connected to her culture when she plays, Kaludjak maintains her connection using the Nunavut flag. She also uses the jerseys, beaded earrings and parkas made by Inuit. Thinking of the message she wants to share with her supporters, she says, “I want to thank my coaches for always believing in me no matter what, no matter how hard I was to teach and giving them stress.”

Her advice for younger Inuit and Indigenous athletes just starting their journey towards the Arctic Winter Games would be, “It is really hard, but you gotta push yourself through it, because there's no one else that will push for you. No one else will do it for you. There's going to be people that are going to make it hard for you, but it's only to learn. You're going to make mistakes in whatever you're going to play, and it's going to be tough to get that all out of your head that you made a mistake. But in the end, it's teaching you, it's helping you learn, it's helping you grow. There's always going to be someone that's trying to put you down, but you gotta keep your head up and be stronger and just don't listen to anyone else if they're putting you down."

To take care of her mental health and overall well being as an athlete, Kaludjak plays sports. It helps keep her balanced and stay herself. “I play sports for myself to forget what I am thinking, and I really enjoy being active. I love doing things. I love playing sports, and that's the thing that helped me, with my mental health, with grief, with everything,” she reflects. She finds as hard as playing sports can be, it blocks everything out. Her goal is to stay active and play sports until she can’t. She always wants to stay positive and be mindful.

She started from grief but now Makayla Kaludjak plays with love. After losing her father, sports helped her get back on her feet and back into life. Now back at the Arctic Winter Games for a third time, she overcame knee pain to keep doing what she loves to do. She’s already thinking about the next time, the next sport and how she’s going to make her dreams come true.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article.