Square Dance Showdown

Our community loooooves to dance. There are dances held almost every week at the community hall, and it's always a social event to go. Most people know how to jig and square dancing is the main form of entertainment from young to old.

Different communities have different styles of square dancing, and groups will travel around to showcase their talent. Baker Lake hosted the Square Dance Show Down a couple of weeks ago and groups from all over the region came to dance. A friend and I went to go check it out because some students from the school were dancing and we wanted to see what a showdown looked like, and the costumes.

These girls had matching dresses and beautiful kamiks (sealskin boots)

What I didn't realize was that each group danced for 30 minutes. THIRTY. Minutes. Straight!! I was exhausted watching! I am in awe of the stamina of dancers, but you could see the sweat dripping off them by the end. It looked tiring, that's for sure! On the night we went, everything was supposed to start at 9, but an announcement came on around 9:30 that things would be delayed because they needed a drummer - and the back-up drummer was finishing his hockey game. Haha...if people like dancing here, they LOVE hockey...so of course no one minded the wait!

Baker Lake Band!

The actual event started around 10 in the evening, so unfortunately we didn't get to stay for the whole thing since it was a school night and we needed our sleep, but we did see the finalists for the youth groups. I took a quick video to share; this is the youth group from Rankin Inlet:

It was a fun night and I'm so happy I got to see it!

-L