Now the work ramps up.

The host society of the 2012 Arctic Winter Games (AWG) last week welcomed the chef de missions to Whitehorse from each of the nine participating regions.

On Wednesday, representatives from Alaska, Alberta North, Greenland, Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Nunavik, Que., Yamal and Sápmi descended on the Yukon.

The group arrived for a meet and greet Wednesday evening at SportsLife and continued with meetings Thursday and Friday.

The meetings were centered around details which included accommodations, travel and food when the teams arrive.

Chris Milner, general manager for the 2012 AWG, said organizers are where they hoped to be at this point in the preparations.

"What we hear from them is that our theories and our plans are very good. What we need to do now is gather the people in order to make it happen, so that's the phase we're into now,” Milner said.

"We took questions and feedback and got advice from them on how those plans looked, and for the most part, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive, they're really happy with what they saw here in Whitehorse and really happy with what committees had presented.”

"We're going to start into the final phase with a lot of positive feedback from the teams.”

The meetings also included a scavenger hunt through the venues on Thursday and sports demonstrations by local athletes on Friday.

Thursday's scavenger hunt was designed to take the visiting chef de missions

around accommodations and venues.

"So they were able to get a really good flavour of Whitehorse and some of the things that Whitehorse has to offer,” Milner said.

"We wanted to give them a map and show them how to get around, and the best way to do that is for them to get around themselves.”

The venues are close together, a bonus which received major praise from the chef de missions, Milner said.

"Even when you're at the two farthest away venues, whether it be Grey Mountain and Mount Sima, you can still see Mount Sima from Grey Mountain Road. They were blown away with how close things are together, and that's a huge asset we have here for the teams, because the more time people can spend at a venue, then the less time in buses.”

Friday kicked off with an Arctic sports demonstration put off by local athlete Josh Carr, who showcased each of the Arctic sports that will be featured at the Games.

"The meetings were unconventional in that we tried whenever possible to show people what we were doing as opposed to talk about it,” Milner said.

In the afternoon, the group went to Porter Creek Secondary School for another sport demonstrations.

Sport chair Mike Muller held a badminton competition followed by a mock awards ceremony.

"It was very hands on, very demonstration focused,” Milner said. "We had a lot of fun with the whole thing.”

This was the last time before the Games that the chef de missions will meet in person. Until the Games, however, the teams will have a monthly conference call to update each other on the preparations.

"We check in pretty regularly, but this is definitely the biggest meeting that we'll have with them until they arrive here on the 28th of February,” Milner said.

"These meetings are typically designed to highlight challenges and areas that people need to work on, and the feedback that we got from them is that it was very positive. We still have four months to go and we still have four months worth of things to do, but the overall feedback was very positive. Most importantly, people had fun, which is what the Games are about, and if you can make a meeting fun, then you're probably doing something right.”

Added Milner: "This is when the team grows from 600 or 700 people to 2,500 people and the information comes quick and there's a lot of different people involved certainly things will get busy over the next little while.”