Students cross-train hauling logs in the bush
By Rick Garrick
SANDY LAKE – Garden River’s Ralph Bekintis occasionally takes his student athletes out into the bush to haul logs as a cross-training activity to improve their conditioning.
“We do a bit of wood cutting for the people on the reserve,” says the vice principal at Thomas Fiddler Memorial Elementary School in Sandy Lake, a Nishnawbe Aski Nation community located about 600 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay. “Every second day we do running. We’ve had a running club up there for the last 10 years now. They’re natural runners so we switched to running and we’ve been doing that ever since. We’re starting to see some results — some of the kids are starting to win gold at the NAIG (North American Indigenous Games).”
One Sandy Lake runner won gold and bronze at NAIG this past summer while another won silver.
“I like working with kids — one of my goals is to always work with kids to give back some of the things I used to do,” Bekintis says, noting he received plenty of help from coaches while in school. “I used to be very active in sports, a basketball all star, volleyball, fishing and hunting. We used to do that around Wawa and the Sault Ste. Marie area. I always loved the bush.”
Bekintis grew up in Garden River and Wawa with his aunt Elizabeth Belleau. He first got involved with organized sports while in high school in Wawa, where he eventually won the mile race in Grade 11.
“I joined a lot of sports beginning in Grade 9 and 10,” Bekintis says. “I started off with basketball and found out there’s other things in high school. They’ve got curling and badminton and volleyball.”
Bekintis credits practice and listening to coaches for his success in sports during high school. Although he didn’t make the basketball team on his first attempt, he made the team the next year after practicing all summer.
“If you listen, you will learn — and the whole thing is practice,” Bekintis says. “I went home and practiced all summer. Every day I would be at the basketball court. I din’t want that to happen to me again, so the next year I went there I had a jump shot and I was on the team. Coaches recognize practice, and that is what I am doing with these kids (in Sandy Lake).”
Bekintis and a group of parents from Sandy Lake recently drove for 15 hours on winter roads and highways to bring a group of student athletes to the NAN Indoor Games in Thunder Bay.
“We like supporting activities like this because it keeps the kids active,” Bekintis says. “It keeps them in school, so they can get a better education.”
Bekintis is a diabetic, so he keeps active to help with his medical condition. He has been running half marathons for the past three years and plans to run a half marathon in New York City this spring.
“It’s run for the kids and they are raising charity money for kids at 600 schools around that area,” Bekintis says. “They use that money to teach those kids how to run and keep them active, so I don’t mind supporting those kind of things.”
Bekintis moved up to Sandy Lake after meeting his wife, who is from Sandy Lake, while he was working in Thunder Bay.
“I got married in Sandy Lake in 1980 and I’ve been up there ever since,” Bikinis says. “I came down to Thunder Bay for a few years to go back to university, and then I went back up as a teacher in 1984.”