The territory’s world-class trails were showcased during the Western Canadian Orienteering Championships last weekend.

Orienteers from western Canada – as well as Ontario, the U.S.A., and Europe – gathered in the Yukon capital for the three-day event, which featured, sprint, middle distance and long courses.

The sport sees competitors race from control to control on courses of varying length, using only a map and compass as a guide.

The event featured two new maps, said Barbara Scheck, a member of the local organizing committee.

The sprint event held in the Takhini neighbourhood Friday night was a new map, as was the long distance event held Saturday at the Gunnar Nilsson and Mickey Lammers Research Forest, north of Whitehorse.

Sunday’s middle distance event at Long Lake was held based on a revised map.

“It’s nice to have new maps,” said Scheck. “Many of these orienteers have been here before and this kind of levels the playing field.”

Approximately 130 orienteers registered for the event, with half the field coming from Outside, she said.

The 37th annual event – which determines the best orienteers in the west – featured rain Friday, then sunny skies for the rest of the weekend.

The championships featured competitors of all ages, from 12 to 85-plus.

Isaac Sherwood, 15, of the Foothills Orienteering club in Calgary said he got hooked on orienteering four years ago.

Later this summer, he will compete in Sweden.

“It’s really fun,” he said of the sport that’s taking him places. “You get to go out and do your own thing. It’s fun to be outside.”

Sherwood won the 15 to 16 boys middle distance event Sunday after finishing second in the long and third in the sprint.

“It’s really nice terrain and really nice maps,” he said. “There’s not as much negative topography here (as opposed to Calgary), and different trees. But it’s pretty similar otherwise.”

Joanne Woods, a member of the Greater Vancouver Orienteering Club, said the Yukon contains plenty of prime orienteering landscape, including “runnable forest.”

Participating in the “most competitive category, except for men’s elite” – women’s 55 to 64 – Woods earned victory in the sprint event, noting the urban route was familiar thanks to her training in Vancouver.

“The orienteering here is fantastic,” Woods said. “They always have the best maps.”

“Every course is different and challenging,” added club teammate Karen Lachance, who won each of her events in the two-person women’s 65 to 74 age group. “You have to maintain your mind while running. The person who makes the least mistakes usually wins.”

Meanwhile Scheck, who earned victory in both the middle distance and long events among women 55 to 64, said the national orienteering community is a close-knit one.

“I think it’s special because you see your friends again,” she said of hosting Westerns. “I also love the Yukon, and just sharing it with people.”

The sport remains popular in the territory, an area Scheck referred to as a hotbed for orienteering.

“You have to focus,” she explained. “The trick is to try and remember technique, and it is a sport where practice pays off.”

She said much thanks is due to the Yukon government’s Community Development Fund, which put money towards the Yukon Orienteering Association’s project that saw several new maps laid out last year.

The Yukon has now hosted Westerns six times, with the most recent event held in Whitehorse in 2011.

See Tuesday’s newspaper for more coverage of this event.