As Tuktoyaktuk gym closure drags on, residents find new ways to be active

Noah Gruben used to play basketball at the Mangilaluk School gym in Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., three times a week.

The 36-year old father has been playing basketball since he was a teenager, and says the sport is important to his physical and mental health.

"When you're on the court nothing exists, you're just there having fun. There's no time. There's no worries," he explained.

But it's been years since he was able to play in his local gym. 

First, access was suspended because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and then in 2021, when renovations at Mangilaluk, the community's only school began. Since June of 2022, it's been closed altogether. 

In Tuktoyaktuk, the school gym is the only gym, and one of few public spaces for recreation, in the community. 

Since February, Gruben and four other men from the community have been driving almost two hours to Inuvik once or twice every week to play in a basketball league there. 

At first, they got $1,500 in gas vouchers from the Tuktoyaktuk Community Corporation, but the players used up all the vouchers about halfway through the season. 

The players are now paying the $150 in gas for each trip themselves. 

"We're trying to find funding and nobody's responding so we're just doing it out of our own pocket," he said.

"It's tough. Especially with the prices living up here, raising a family."

Planning for the Mangilaluk school renovations has been in the works since 2012. The newly renovated facility will have an extra 1,300 square metres of space, with a brand new gymnasium. The old gym will be turned into a kitchen, library, and high school lounge. 

Construction on the facility was slated to begin in 2020, but renovations on the school were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and didn't start until January of 2021. 

As of January 2021, the plan was for the new gym to be completed by the beginning of 2022.