Team Yukon returned home from the North American Indigenous Games sporting 11 new medals.

The 45-athlete contingent finished 12th out of 20 teams with four gold, three silver and three bronze medal wins last week in Regina, Sask.

British Columbia topped the standings at the 2014 Games with 160, followed by the host Saskatchewan team with 159.

Ontario rounded out the top three with 149 total medals.

Yukon’s paddlers led the way for the territory, winning five of the 11 medals, while speedster Jaylene Kelly took home two silvers on the track and sharpshooter Shadunjen Maria Bernadette van Kampen earned two bronze medals with her rifle.

William Connellan and Jacy Sam won two golds in their canoe, winning both the 1,000- and 6,000-metre events, and Sam went on to win a third gold with Alice Frost-Hanberg in the 3,000-m race.

Destiny Taylor took home the Yukon’s fourth gold with a dazzling performance in the traditional archery event.

Kelly won her silvers in the 400-m and six-kilometre cross-country races, while Sam and Frost-Hanberg placed second in the 6,000-m female canoe competition.

Not done there, Sam and Frost-Hanberg also earned bronze in the 1,000-m female canoe race.

Track star Dana Sellars also nabbed a bronze medal in the 800-m, and van Kampen rounded out the Yukon’s medal count with bronze wins in the rifle shooting prone and overall female events.

Chef de Mission Charly Kelly said finishing in the middle of the pack was “awesome” for the small Yukon squad.

“When you look at the medals, there’s quite a spread between the top teams that took 500 athletes ... and the smaller ones like we took,” she said yesterday. “We still did extremely well with our medal count.”

This year’s team consisted of 79 members, including elders, mission staff and coaches.

“I think they represented us well,” Kelly said. “Everyone was very happy to work with the Yukon. We were very accommodating and helped out as much as we could at all venue sites.”

And while the territory did claim 11 medals, Kelly was also impressed with the two teams that represented the Yukon in fastpitch and volleyball.

On the volleyball court, coach Michelle Dawson-Beattie worked hard to pull the team together.

“It was great watching them,” said Kelly. “They had a lot of really close matches.”

Meanwhile, the boys softball team led by George Skookum did their best to adjust to fastpitch and pieced together a thriller in an eventual 20-13 loss to the Quebec-based Eastern Door and the North team.

“They came out and set their goals – and they exceeded some of them,” said Kelly.

“Every single individual who went in a participatory role grew as a person.

“The key thing with most Games is just trying to have kids do their best,” she added.

“That’s the purpose of these Games, I think. It allows the kids to set their sights higher.”

Assistant chef Gael Marchand said the Games went as organizers thought it would, except for the canoe contingent, which exceeded expectations.

“I think we performed very well,” he said. “We were a small, friendly contingent.”

Marchand said the athletes appreciated the friendly nature of the Games.

“People are very friendly toward each other and there is less pressure,” he explained of the atmosphere in Regina.

“Even if the competition level is pretty high, it’s friendly.”

The warm weather in the Saskatchewan capital may have also played a role in the relaxed attitude of the event, he added.

The Yukon team uniform was one of the most popular trading pieces at the Games, Marchand said, especially the hats and jackets.

“We had the best-looking uniform, so everyone wanted to trade our clothes,” he chuckled. “We had so much requests, we had to hang on to our stuff.”

Team Yukon was made up of First Nations groups from communities across the territory.

The 2014 Indigenous Games featured more than 4,000 athletes from across Canada and seven U.S. states.