Fort McPherson jamboree goes online amid gathering restrictions

The Peel River Jamboree in Fort McPherson, N.W.T., is finding an innovative way to keep its contests running, despite restrictions around gatherings due to COVID-19.

Across the North, jamborees and different events have been cancelled over the pandemic.

But the Fort McPherson jamboree has a backup plan and is moving online, to keep people involved and to give them something positive to take part in while they are in isolation.

Sierra Daley, a committee member with the Peel River Jamboree, said originally when everything started getting cancelled they figured they would host some kind of summer festival or something in the fall until they realized that might not be possible either. 

And then, one of their committee members saw videos from the South where people were doing contests online.

"[We] thought we should try and do that here with some of our events that are easily able to be transferred onto online platforms."

The biggest event that the jamboree normally hosts, is a jigging contest. So they decided to take it online first. 

"It was crazy we opened it on Monday night and we closed the contest at midnight on Wednesday and we had 185 submissions."

Daley said they had many submissions from children this year as well.

She said there were around 50 submissions in the five-and-under category and around 48 submissions from six to 10 year-olds. The youngest competitor this year was nine months old.

Deborah Peterson won first place in the women's 16-30 category. Her son is four years old, and also won first in the five-and-under category. She said he has been dancing since he was two years old, but this competition was particularly special. 

"My grandfather is at home and has cancer, he's not allowed to leave his house and we're not allowed to visit him because of COVID-19. So this was a way he could see what the kids are up to, through the jigging contest."

One of the major motivations for bringing the contests online was to keep people active, both physically and socially.

"We're trying to promote health and wellness within the region, being socially active while staying physically distant and following those recommendations from the chief public health officer."

She said they also wanted to give back to the communities that have helped them with their fundraising efforts, which began in January.

She said they are hoping to host events online throughout the month of April.

"We're just moving on to this new way of life online right now and we're still trying to think of ideas we're trying to figure out how we can transfer some of our newer events into online platforms and then looking around for new ideas that we can do too."