2020 Arctic Winter Games would have put $5.7M into Yukon economy, study says

Derek Mager says studying the 2020 Arctic Winter Games was something he's never done before.

"This was the first time we've conducted an economic impact assessment for an event that had been cancelled," said Mager, a consultant with the Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance (CSTA).

The games were slated to happen in Whitehorse last month, but were cancelled a week before because of concerns over the spread of COVID-19. It was among the first major events in Yukon to be cancelled because of the pandemic.

The CSTA, in partnership with the 2020 games' host society, crunched all the numbers and found the event would have injected an estimated $5.7 million into the Yukon economy.

"It's predictive of what would have happened should this have taken place — and the numbers are fairly accurate because it was literally a week before," Mager said.

"We knew the exact number of athletes that were going to be arriving, we knew the number of tickets that were all sold in advance ... so we knew all the people that were coming to Whitehorse."

'That's a lot of people'

About 2,000 athletes were expected at the event, and the study estimates another 900 people — spectators, media and special guests — would have also been in the city.

"That's a lot of people in March," said Moira Lassen, general manager for the 2020 games.

The study also factored in the money spent by the local host society, and estimates the games would have supported $9.96 million in economic activity in the territory.

Lassen said the host society thought it was important to see the numbers, and share them with governments and other agencies that fund the games.

"Obviously the pandemic has impacted people in many multiple ways, both personally and professionally, and economics has everything to do with life. So we wanted to make sure that this was information that people could digest."

Lassen said it was an emotional experience to dismantle the games' infrastructure and sell off unused supplies. Much of that work happened just before Yukon's public health recommendations and orders were in place, Lassen said.

Hundreds of bunk beds were sold off and Lassen said many of them went to the N.W.T. government to be used in COVID-19 isolation spaces.

The ulu medals were melted down by the games' international committee president in Dawson City. The idea is to reuse the material for ulus at the 2022 games.

Lassen said it's clear cancelling the games was the right decision. Things changed quickly after the games were called off.  

"We had quite a few staff members who had to get back to where they came from like Ontario, and Manitoba ... so they left in rather strange circumstances — we weren't able to hug each goodbye," Lassen recalled.

"There was a few extremely emotional moments."