Whitehorse resident lands dream job teaching orienteering

Teaching orienteering this spring has been a dream job for 18-year-old Colin Abbott.

Teaching orienteering this spring has been a dream job for 18-year-old Colin Abbott.

The Whitehorse resident was hired back in April for a seasonal job, helping organize the junior program and promoting the sport in community.

“It’s great,” he said about his position. “It’s really hands on and I’m learning a lot about teaching.”

This is the second year this program has been offered. In 2008, Justine Scheck held Abbott’s current position.

Abbott, who attended Carleton University in Ottawa this past school year, is responsible for organizing all of the junior training session, which includes 10 in total.

Some of his other job requirements are helping update some of the older maps and teaching orienteering to other groups if they are interested.

One of these situations came up when Abbott was contacted by F.H. Collins Secondary School to lead some of its Phys Ed classes.

Abbott, who attended F.H. Collins during his high school years, said it was a bit odd teaching orienteering there, but he said this week’s session went really well.

“There were a number of kids that were really into it and I think everyone learned something, which is basically my goal for the session, just to introduce them to orienteering and get them to have some fun.”

Abbott has been an orienteer for around eight years and in 2008 competed at the world junior orienteering championship, held in Sweden.

Despite the sport being almost a second nature to him, Abbott said it can be difficult explaining certain concepts to others. Among the most challenging thing to get across is connecting the map to reality.

“That’s the hardest part about it,” he said. “It’s a little bit abstract to think the piece of paper can have information about everything around you and that’s what usually gets people. It’s difficult for them to connect that.”

Abbott said his coach has been a big help in helping improve as a teacher.

“Brent Langbakk has been a great help, he’s helped me set up the first couple of sessions and he’s definitely been an assist.”

Abbott thinks teaching the sport this summer will make him an even better orienteer.

“It’s always good even just to be looking at a map for a couple extra hours every day,” he said. “The basics are always important even at the international level, so it’s good to be re-enforcing those.”

In other orienteering news, the Yukon Orienteering Association held a meet at Rotary Park Thursday.

This was the second meet in the past few days for the organization,, which is getting into the spirit of national orienteering week.

“This is orienteering week in Canada, so all of the clubs, its suggested that we do something to encourage participation and raise the awareness of the sport,” said Nesta Leduc, organizer of Thursday’s event.

Rotary Park’s orienteering meet included a short and long course. The long distance featured 14 controls and was about 2.7-km.

The shorter course had nine controls and went around Rotary Park, including the Information Building and a couple monuments along the way.

Thursday’s meet was not a time trial and Leduc said it was more to raise awareness in a non-competitive way.

“What I really like about orienteering is that it’s a sport for all ages,” she said. “I can come out here, age over 70, and still mix with kids of seven years and a little higher. We are all competing at our own level.”

Orienteering participants are required to locate designated checkpoints in an unknown terrain.

The sport not only includes cross-country running, but can also be done on mountain bikes or using nordic skis.