Borough submits bid to host first Arctic Winter Games in the Valley

MAT-SU — The Mat-Su Borough has officially submitted its bid to the Arctic Winter Games International Committee to host the 2024 Arctic Winter Games in the Mat-Su Valley.

As it is Alaska’s turn in the rotation to host the games and no other municipality submitted a bid, the AWG is expected to be awarded to the Mat-Su around the end of March or early in April. Borough Planning Services Director Kim Solien led the team that prepared the bid, and is excited for the opportunity to host over 300 athletes for competition in 21 sports, as well as the cultural exchange programs that will take place during the games.

“Yes it’s about athletes and s sports and celebrating the uniqueness of our arctic community in that way, but it’s also about celebrating and sharing culture and traditions and so alongside the competitions there will also be cultural sharing that will be happening that will be open to the public to come and watch and participate in. So like downtown Palmer, downtown Wasilla, Skeetawk, GPRA, potentially Crevasse Moraine, Settlers Bay plus a number of school gyms across the core area and the different ice arenas will have activities every day. We also are hoping that we’ll have a mini winter carnival and hopefully the state fair will partner with us on this so we can create another opportunity to celebrate with all the youth that have come from across the arctic and then the Alaska youth that are participating,” said Solien.

The Mat-Su Borough Assembly approved the AWG bid along with $250,00 in startup costs at a meeting on Feb. 2. The bid was emailed last week, and if the Mat-Su is awarded the games at the end of March as expected, work will quickly begin on establishing a nonprofit organization to collect funding and prepare for the games. Solien said that staff would be hired to steer the planning, and a board of directors would need to be appointed of over a dozen members by early this summer. Borough and city of Wasilla and Palmer staff may serve on various boards to help provide their expertise in matters such as fundraising and facility use. Following the organization of a board of directors, a facility assessment on existing places to conduct the 21 sporting events would be conducted to determine if any additional infrastructure would be required. The state of Alaska has verbally committed $2 million to the effort as well as $50,00 from the AWG International Committee left by the last Alaskan municipality to host when Fairbanks held the games in 2014.

“In the bid proposal we roughly said this is how much it has cost other communities to host the games and so that’s what we’re putting in here is that we think it might cost between $4 and 6 million to host the games. We’ll know a lot more probably by the end of the summer, what those actual figures are. I think it will be less because we don’t need to do the facility upgrades. We’re going to get a lot of in kind support from the city of Palmer and Wasilla and the borough in terms of their staff expertise and the use of their facilities. The hard costs that we will have to fundraise for are feeding the athletes while they’re here,” said Solien.

The first Arctic Winter Games were held in 1970 and have never been hosted by the Mat-Su Borough before. Solien said that as well as the bid proposal that can be found on the borough website, another page has been set up to allow volunteers to sign up to help with the effort to host the games. An estimated 2,000 volunteers will be required to undertake the effort of putting on the games that will feature two separate sections of sporting competitions, the Dene games that are similar to the Native Youth Olympics in Alaska high schools, and more common team sports and endurance competitions such as cross country skiing, curling, gymnastics and hockey. Solien said that shuttle buses will transport athletes from local schools to their competitions as well as moving spectators from local park and rides around Palmer and Wasilla to the venues where the games are taking place. Among the partnerships secured before sending the bid to the AWG International Committee are the Chickaloon Village and Cook Inlet Tribal Council, both of whom will consult in putting on the ceremonies for opening and closing and assist with the weeklong cultural exchange among athletes from arctic nations.

“Arctic nationsand arctic communities and communities that have lots of winter have started to like reimagine people being in public spaces during the winter and changing how some of the city is designed and some of the infrastructure that’s available for people to be outside in the winter,” said Solien. “I would really like to work with committees of people from Wasilla and Palmer and the borough to talk about what are the opportunities to enhance socializing activity and people gathering in our public spaces outside in the winter, so I think that would be a nice legacy to have.”