(Image Credit: Celena Stertz)

By Nathaniel Leigh

Community

High Prairie pow wow dancer performing at Arctic Winter Games

Mar 14, 2026 | 6:01 AM

A High Prairie resident is attending the Arctic Winter Games this weekend in Yukon.

Sixteen-year-old Paige Aubichon was selected as part of the cultural delegation to dance with the Traditional Paths Society during the event’s closing ceremonies Saturday, Mar. 14.

Aubichon says it was nerve-wracking to introduce pow wow dancing on an international stage to many people who had never even heard of it.

“Once everyone had seen us dance there, it was just blown away,” she says. “It feels really exciting, and it feels like such an honour to be able to show people something new. We’ve been talking to other youth, because it’s all youth that are performing. It feels like a really big honour just to be able to share that with a lot of people that maybe a week ago didn’t know what pow wow dancing was.”

(Image Credit: Celena Stertz)

Despite her nerves, Aubichon says she was excited to meet the many athletes and guests from different cultures attending the games.

“I met someone, a cultural performer from Norway, and made friends with the cultural girls from Alaska, the singers, and then the singers from Nunavut,” she says. “If I never came, I never would have met these people and made such great connections. It’s just really an unreal feeling.”

(Image Credit: Celena Stertz)

She says a pow wow has a strong feeling of connection and togetherness.

“Pow wows are often happening near the summer, so people will spend their whole summers dedicated to pow wows, travelling every weekend all across North America, Canada, and the States,” she says. “Just travelling from pow wow to pow wow. A lot of us dancers came to the Arctic Winter Games; that’s how we spend our summers.”

Aubichon is the High Prairie Pow Wow Princess and is set to start studying abroad in Norway for two years, starting this fall.

The Artic Winter Games closing ceremonies are taking place Saturday, Mar. 14 from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

(Image Credit: Celena Stertz)