Sport Yukon is off to a good start with their online silent art auction.

The auction is in support of the Kids Recreation Fund.

Over 200 items with a total value of $20,000 are being auctioned off.

The art was originally intended for the 2020 Arctic Winter Games. It was donated to Sport Yukon by the Arctic Winter Games International Committee (AWGIC).

“We are very grateful to AWGIC for the donation,” said Sport Yukon executive director Tracey Bilsky. “There are some fantastic pieces, and we are honoured that we get to help show the talents of the artists. Since 2020, the art has been sitting in boxes, and it deserves to go somewhere it can be appreciated.

“It’s also exciting that all money raised will go to the Kids Recreation Fund. This means we will be able to assist even more families in getting their children into sport and recreation.”

The Star spoke to John Tonin, Sport Yukon’s communications, marketing and web design coordinator Tuesday for an update on the auction. He said it is going well so far.

“We’ve been really pleased with the interest that we’ve gotten so far. We’ve had quite a few people bidding, over 70, and that number keeps growing. So we’re super thrilled and we keep expecting it to grow as the word of mouth continues.”

“We’re seeing 10 new people every day and currently we’ve made over $5,000 … all that money goes towards the Kid’s rec fund,” he added.

Tonin said they really didn’t know what to expect.

“This is the first auction that I know Sport Yukon has ever held so we didn’t know the reaction of the community. We’ve been really pleased with everyone’s support and we do hope more people will find it because all the art is really, really nice and I think people would have really appreciated it in 2020 when the Arctic Winter Games would have been here.”

“Some of the Buy Now stuff has been going really quickly and a lot of the fur mitts, those have been quite popular as well.”

Prices for the art are very reasonable. “We want to respect the artists, we didn’t want to drop the prices too low, so we thought we would set the bidding at about 50 per cent of what the art costs in the hope that people would bid up close to the value of the pieces,” Tonin explained.

Tonin said some of the pieces have over three bids already.

Some of the bids are coming close to the value that the artists put on their pieces of artwork.

“We have a pair (of mitts) by Diane Olson, which are valued at $175, and the current bid on it is $130. So we’re getting there,” said Tonin.

The Arctic Winter Games International Committee purchased the art from the artists.

“Each artist had to give around $525 worth of value to the Arctic Winter Games … that’s why some artists will have one piece from them and others, like the artists that make jewelry, we have quite a few of their works,” said Tonin.

The auction items include artwork by Nicole Bauberger, Tara Kolla and many other artists, as well as beaded moccasins, mitts and jewelry by Lena Moon, beaded works by Diane Olson, jewelry by Sheelah Tolton, Lara Melnik, Copper Caribou, Amy Kenny, George Roberts and Carlie Beads and much more.

The Kids Recreation Fund (KRF) provides many Yukon families with an opportunity for funding so their kids can participate in sport and recreation activities.

From April 2021 – March 2022, the KRF supported 623 children with $250,000 spent assisting families get equipment, register for sports, and get kids involved in recreational activities.

The auction will be open until Dec. 5.

Tonin added “Thank you to everybody that has registered and bid so far. We hope other people will take the time, even just to look at it, because a lot of the work is really nice. These artists would have been celebrated at the 2020 Arctic Winter Games as part of the cultural exhibition and we still think that their work should be seen and if anybody wants to check it out, they can go to https://32auctions.com/SportYukon”