More residents than ever participated in this year’s Walk to Tuk challenge with over 5,500 people on 495 teams walking a total of 752,215 kilometres.
Each year, teams of people collectively try to walk 1,658 kilometres – symbolizing the distance along the Mackenzie River from Fort Providence to Tuktoyaktuk.
The NWT Recreation and Parks Association, which hosts the popular get-active event, said this year’s participants logged nearly 30,000 more kilometres than during last year’s challenge.
A total of 242 teams made it the full distance of the challenge – and another 42 teams doubled their distance and “walked” back to Fort Providence from Tuktoyaktuk.
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Team Snowshoe Police logged the furthest distance, walking 10,902 km, followed by Team Walking Away From Covid with 7,156 km and Team Miker’s Hikers with 5,271 km.
“To see the motivation, excitement and resilience this year in particular has been really inspiring,” said Bri Krekoski, the association’s active communities director.
“Walk to Tuk 2021 saw more NWT residents participate than ever before. That was our goal, and it went a long way towards keeping northerners healthy, happy, and engaged.”
This year, there were participating teams from 31 of the NWT’s 33 communities.
On average, participants logged over 240 minutes of exercise each week. The association said that’s nearly 100 minutes more than Canadian physical activity guidelines recommend.
In total, residents and participants from outside of the NWT logged nearly 180,000 hours of walking.
