He balances a spruce spear on his index and middle fingers and looks down the long track with a quiet intensity. Then, he snaps into a short run and gets low. He flicks his wrist and launches the earthbound javelin. 

But it’s not a javelin. This is a snow snake, and a game rooted in cross-cultural traditions, whose practitioners have kept it alive across Turtle Island for centuries.

That ethos was no different at the Arctic Winter Games (AWG) this week in Whitehorse, where dozens of athletes from the circumpolar North lined up to take their best shot along a 200-metre track. Snow snake is one several events included as part of the Dene Games at the AWGs.

Tyreke Scurvey’s throw was just shy of the halfway point, enough to earn the Team Yukon player a gold ulu.

Not easy, a shot like that. This is a game that requires a strict balance between strength and finesse. 

Watch long enough and you’ll soon understand why it’s called what it is. Eventually, the spear begins to quickly undulate laterally, much like the animal of its namesake.

Marcus Herron, who’s part of Team Yukon, while fairly new to the game, is hooked. 

“If you get a really good throw, it feels so good, you can kinda feel it when it leaves your hand, and it’s just perfect, man,” he said. “You’re so proud of yourself.”

Justin Johnson, a citizen of Champagne Aishihik First Nations in the Yukon, said traditional stories drew him to the game, which is why he took it up. To his ancestors, it wasn’t so much a game as a means of survival, he said.

“It was definitely used for hunting back in the day, hunting caribou,” said Johnson, whose Tlingit name is Cúch oox. “I definitely wouldn’t mind trying to do it in the modern days.”

There’s northern-style snow snake, then there’s the version that’s been continually played for centuries further south by the historic Haudenosaunee Confederacy, a league of Nations that includes the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora.

Aterahwènta

Called aterahwènta in Kanyen’kéha, the Mohawk language, snow snake is played during the colder months in Haudenosaunee communities that span primarily Ontario, Quebec and upstate New York, often coinciding with mid-winter ceremonies. 

Out east, it’s different. For starters, Haudenosaunee, which means People of the Longhouse, have a different technique. We place our index fingers at the bottom and shoot the snakes down a much narrower track, a long, waist-high bank with a channel cut through.

Plus, the snakes are twice as long as the ones used in the Arctic Winter Games. Made of hardwood like maple, makers tend to carve a head, which is tipped with metals like pewter or sometimes lead.

Tékeniyáhsen Ohkwá:ri [Jackson Two Bears], who’s Kanyen’kehá:ka from Six Nations of the Grand River and Tyendinaga Territories, said snow snake is connected to Haudenosaunee Medicine and Warrior Societies. Traditionally played by men, these days it’s open to everyone, depending on the event.

“It was really geared towards, you know, trying to fight off some of the doom and gloom that we would feel during the winter months,” said Two Bears, who’s also an associate professor of visual arts and Indigenous studies at Western University in London, Ontario. “We start to lose some of that sense of community and some of that sense of belonging.”

The medicine of snow snake, he continued, is its ability to bring people together.

“To do all the things that you now might see in a snow snake game, where people start razzing each other, start joking with each other, telling stories, you know. So, it’s all about that kind of community connection and community context.”

Two Bears said knowledge deserves to be shared. Doing so, he added, leads to transformation, as is the case with snow snake.

“Even early on, that was a game that we started sharing with other communities and other people,” he said. “[It] was played very widely throughout the Dish with One Spoon Region,” said Two Bears, referring to the treaty among First Nations in the Great Lakes region that is based on peace and cooperation with the land and each other. 

“I love the fact that it’s being shared in communities all over,” Two Bears said. “To me, I think that’s part of what it was meant to do. As we always say, as I’m sure you know, our Onkwehón:we [Original Peoples] teachings aren’t just for us. They’re for everybody.”

Still, Two Bears said there’s great responsibility to this. To be played, snow snake must be rooted in the teachings.

“You know, the commercialization of stuff, I’m always very wary of that,” he said. 

“It’s a great privilege, I think, when somebody shares a story with you or shares medicine with you. I would just remind anybody that when that stuff is shared that there’s a responsibility that you take on when you carry that forward, and to be mindful where you learn that stuff from, and to be mindful how you’re going to employ [it].

“Your responsibility is to make sure that it still connects back to those teaching, that that element does not get lost.”

CBC News asked the Arctic Winter Games host society in Whitehorse whether any Knowledge Keepers — from Haudenosaunee or northern First Nations — were involved in the development of snow snake, either this time around or in the past. The organization didn’t provide an interview with a spokesperson, nor did it answer the question.

‘We’re learning things from each other’

Doronn Fox, a citizen of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation, said he’s played four different styles of snow snake, including versions in the east.

“The cultural teachings are a lot different than [with] the other snow snakes I’ve seen, versus ours,” he said. “Ours have been for the necessity of hunting and trapping, feeding your people and community.

“People love it. The games definitely bring a lot of people together. It’s open.”

Sifera Kennytakazo, who’s from Délı̨nę and part of Team N.W.T., is beaming as she takes part in snow snake at the Whitehorse games.

“This is definitely my favourite game here,” she said, the tips of her dark braids covered in frost.

“It gets us together. I hear the languages spoken. We’re learning things from each other, things we didn’t know before.”