Teams from Canada, Mexico and New Zealand added an international presence to this month’s ninth annual Traditional Games held in Juneau, celebrating Alaska Native cultural heritage that is rooted in Indigenous survival and hunting tactics.

Among the nearly 300 athletes, Wrangell student athletes came home with three first-place medals in the competition.

Sealaska Heritage Institute, the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska and other partners co-hosted the event at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé on April 10-12.

The games included 12 different competitions “that test skills of strength, agility, balance, endurance and focus,” the organizers said. “These games are based on hunting and survival skills of the Indigenous people of Alaska and across the north going back hundreds of years.”

Kyle Kaayák’w Worl has been the organizer of the games the past nine years. He said this year’s event broke the record for number of participants.

“The team from Mexico and New Zealand were special guests that we invited to provide more of a cultural exchange to this event around games,” Worl said. “We want to give a broader focus on traditional games around the world.”

Wrangell’s Jonah Hurst took first place among middle school boys in the Inuit stick pull competition. Middle schooler Quinn Davies took fourth place in the same event.

Quinn won first place in the archery competition for middle school boys, and Kasey Whitaker took first among high school boys in the Inuit stick pull. Wrangell’s Turner Garrett also competed at the games.

The two-handed stick pull is a test of strength and grip, explained Tony Harding, who led the Wrangell contingent at the games.

In a best-of-three match, “two contestants sit on the floor facing each other, the soles of their feet touching, knees bent at a 45-degree angle,” the games’ website explains. “Barehanded, contestants firmly grasp a stick placed between them and try to pull the stick away from their opponent without jerking or resetting their grip.”

The game continues until someone loses their grip or falls down, Harding said. The stick is maybe a foot long, and about as big as a wooden dowel rod.

“Traditionally, the event was used as practice for pulling seals from the ice,” according to information provided about the games.

It was Harding’s first time at the Traditional Games, and he was impressed with the Wrangell team’s effort.

“This is all about bringing something for our youth,” Worl said of the games. “I wanted them to experience that international camaraderie, that solidarity with other Indigenous groups, that sense of a shared vision and a love of games and cultural revitalization,” he said.

“What we’re wanting to do in future events is to bring in canoe games, because we know canoeing is a big Southeast tradition.”

Other events at this year’s games included the two-foot high kick, which requires athletes to jump with both feet simultaneously and kick a suspended ball, then land on both feet without falling backward. The ball is raised in increments of four inches after each round.

The two-foot high kick was historically used to communicate the success of a spring hunt, according to a description provided by Sealaska Heritage.

The athlete who kicked the highest — high enough to break a middle school record — was 13-year-old Joseph Rodgers of Chickaloon. It’s his eighth year as a Native Youth Olympics athlete, and his third coming to Juneau for the Traditional Games.

Rodgers’ 90 inches breaks the previous record of 84 inches for the boys middle school two-foot high kick category.

Other events were the kneel jump, where athletes kneel with the tops of their feet flat on the floor and then jump up and forward. Athletes must land on both feet simultaneously and remain in that position without moving and without otherwise touching the floor. The winner is the contestant who jumps the greatest distance.

The kneel jump was a game used to strengthen the leg muscles for jumping from ice floe to ice floe, and for lifting prey after a successful hunt, according to the event material.

The knuckle hop is exactly as it sounds — hoping on the floor on your knuckles.

The seal hop is an endurance game and was traditionally used to sneak up on a seal across the ice, mimicking the mammal’s movement.