Dawn Moses won her first trip to the Scotties Tournament of Hearts while playing at the Whitehorse Curling Club.

This year will mark her 12th trip to the women's national curling championships, this time in Charlottetown, P.E.I., from Feb. 19-27.

Northwest Territories curlers swept into town to take the top two spots of the Scotties YT/NWT Women's Championships held in Whitehorse over the weekend.

Skip Kerry Galusha led Northwest Territories team 2 – third Moses, second Wendy Miller and lead Shona Barbour – to the win after going 5-1 in the modified double round-robin format.

The Galusha rink ousted last year's winners NWT team 1, skipped by Sharon Cormier, along with players Tara Naugler, Medgan Cormier, Danielle Ellis, for a

berth to this year's nationals.

"This win, it's pretty special for a few reasons,” said an emotional Moses following her rink's 10-7 win over YT team 2 in Sunday's draw. "We didn't win last year … and I think of Whitehorse as my home club, because I grew up curling in the Yukon and won my first trip to the Scotties here.

"We were struggling with draw weight for the majority of the game, and when we were able to steal three points, that was a good confidence builder, plus it put us up two points coming home.”

Moses started her curling career in Mayo before competing as a junior in Whitehorse.

"We knew the competition was going to be tough,” Moses added. "We were confident because of all the work we put in this year, and we just knew that we could only get better and better as the weekend went on. It was a challenge, there are some really good teams here, in both the Hewitt rink and the Baldwin rink as well as the Cormier team.”

Sunday's other draw pitted NWT team 1 against YT team 1, skipped by Nicole Baldwin, with third Kerry Campbell, second Ladene Shaw second and lead Lisa Abel.

NWT team 1 downed YT team 1 10-9 in an extra end to avoid a tiebreaker.

The Cormier rink finished runners up with a 4-2 record, while the Baldwin rink finished third with a 2-4 record and the Hewitt rink finished 1-5.

A visibly disappointed Baldwin said her team curled "fairly well” throughout the weekend.

"There were a couple obviously missed opportunities. We played a lot of extra ends. So it just all came down to one rock,” Baldwin said. "It came down to a potential draw to the button.”

Her rink played extra ends in four of its six games.

"Extra ends are always tough, your team has to be right on and ready for it,” she said. "I feel we did very well this weekend, and we just keep climbing that mountain to reach our goal.”

Moses and Galusha have felt the sting of disappointment before. This year, the team decided to refocus.

"It's really special because Kerry (Galusha) and I and the rest of the girls worked really hard, and we're really looking forward to going to Charlottetown,” Moses said.

"We knew the competition was going to be tough and that we would have to work really hard.”

This year will mark Galusha's seventh trip to the national championships. Five of those trips were consecutive, she noted.

She said very little separated the four teams over the weekend.

"It was a struggle – three of our games we were behind points and we had to come back and play our best and I guess experience helped us pull through this weekend,” Galusha said.

"This is one of the first years we've had four top teams where any team could have won. In the past there's always been good teams, but this year all four teams were pretty equal, and basically it was going to be whoever got the breaks and played the best this weekend that was going to come out on top.”

She added that her rink's experience was one of those separating factors.

"We have the most experience out of the four rinks, and I guess we know how to pull through as a team, stick together and know we just have to be patient,” Galusha said.

"We did it in three of our games, and last night (Saturday), we were down 7-1 and we ended up winning in the next round. So I think it's just experience that comes through.”

Now, with all said and done, Galusha and company are going to enjoy representing the territories in P.E.I.

"It's always nice to represent the north – it doesn't matter where we come from, it seems that we always have lots of support when we get down to the Scotties,” Moses said.

Galusha agreed.

"I think I'm still kind of in shock,” Galusha said. "It feels great; I think I just need to let it kick in a bit right now. It feels so good to be able to come back and win those tough games. It feels good to be going back to the big show. It was really tough last year to lose.”