Overcoming injuries and her own mindset, Naja Pearce is representing Nunavut at the Arctic Winter Games. She plays Arctic sports, also known as Inuit games and this is her fourth Arctic Winter Games. Arctic sports is made up of many events including one foot high kick, two foot high kick, Alaskan high kick, triple jumps, sledge jump, one hand reach, arm pull, and kneel jump. She got involved because her biological mom got her started at a young age. She fell in love with the sport and now she does it as a hobby. 

There’s an Inuit games club that they started the previous year with just herself, her mom and sister, until other athletes joined in. Practices are competitive to help everyone get a feel for what competitions will be like. They do this twice a week. Once or twice a month she runs gym classes in the school, teaching students Inuit games and encouraging them to come to Inuit games club. She also does demonstrations for conferences. 

“I think one of my biggest key things that stands out for Inuit games, from my experience, is just the friendship that I built, within all the different countries, within all the athletes that compete in Inuit games, and how friendly it is,” Pearce beams. Competing at such a high level with people she gets to know, they end up becoming lifelong friends. Knowing she will see friends makes going to competitions even more fun. 

Last year, she had the opportunity to coach, something that opened her eyes to new experiences. “Being a coach is so much different to being an athlete…. I really like being a coach. It's super fun watching and helping all these athletes and trying to push them to their limit,” she gushes. One of her goals is to become one of the main coaches for the girls for Inuit games because she enjoyed being a coach as much as she enjoyed being an athlete, if not more so. She hopes to enhance her coaching skills in the future. 

When it comes to inspiration, other than her mom, Susie, Danica Taylor is someone who inspires her. Watching her represent Nunavut, knowing all the dedication she puts into her work makes her want to be like her. She’s someone Pearce wants to watch. “I feel like every time I practice or every time I compete in Inuit games, I'm connecting with my culture, because it's a sport that's in our culture, and that we just practice all the time,” she reflects.  

As far as challenges go, Pearce had an injury to her knee, something that set her back a lot. She tried to push through it, not letting it heal and kept reinjuring it. She kept getting frustrated and had to learn how to take care of her injury so it would heal and then she could compete and get back to training. She’s still learning how to listen to her body and slow down. She’s working on the mental aspect of the sport. “You have to prepare yourself and push yourself to a whole other level of any other sport,” she confides. To take care of her mental wellbeing, she trains as much as she can but tries to listen to her body so she doesn’t overtrain. She also goes to therapy to talk about things. 

Her advice to younger Inuit and Indigenous athletes just starting their journey in sport would be “don’t be scared. If you have a big passion for it, just push through it. It's going to be so worth it in the end, and it's going to be very fulfilling within yourself to set your own personal goal within your sport that you are very passionate about.”

Her final message she would like to share for people who are intimidated by her high kick demos is, “it is an individual sport, but at the same time, it's the friendliest sport that you can ever get into. Once you learn how to do one foot high kick, two foot high kick, and get that mental break, you can exceed so much and we have a lot of good athletes within Nunavut, just trying to get them to do it more often. We could be a really big team, and potentially set records.”

Getting over her injury and her own mindset, Naja Pearce is determined to do her best at the Arctic Winter Games. Inspired to coach, to compete and to build her sport, she’s following in the footsteps of athletes like Danica Taylor. Building an Inuit games club, she’s building a community of athletes to encourage and support each other in the sport she loves so much.