The North American Orienteering Championships are underway in Whitehorse, with 573 participants from the around the world registered.

After the North American event wraps up Tuesday, the Canadian Orienteering Championships will be held here next Thursday and Friday.

Athletes from any country can participate in both events, though only residents of North America receive medals for the North American championships, and only Canadians receive medals for the Canadian championships.

Race director Afan Jones of the Yukon Orienteering Association told the Star this week he expects all the athletes will compete in both championships. Some of the North American events are world ranking events, he pointed out, adding more than 20 countries will be represented.

Jones said the event will feature a mixture of ages and a mixture of experience but there will be top world class orienteerers here.

“It’s a whole range of ages,” he said. “I would say the majority are adults but literally they could be from nine to 90 years old.

“There is an age class in men’s 90 and in women’s 90 because there are people for whom it’s a sport for life.

“People still like the technical challenge,” he said. “They may not be able to run as fast as they used to but they still like the technical challenge of navigating around the course.”

Jones said approximately 30 local orienteerers will be participating.

Orienteering is described as a cross country running event with each runner using a compass and maps to plot their own course.

As long as they reach the control points in order, all is good.

It can be more about navigation than running.

And it can be a challenge. Just ask Whitehorse orienteer Jen MacKeigan.

The 25-year-old is fresh off the World Orienteering Championships in Latvia earlier this month.

MacKeigan recalled in an interview this week how there was one particularly long leg in the long event.

Each woman was fitted with a GPS tracker. In reviewing the race afterwards, all 70 women took a different route on the long leg, she said.

“When you are navigating for 1 1/2 to two hours you mind is engaged,” she said. “It gets tired.”

MacKeigan said you can only run as fast as you can read your map.

She uses key words in her head to help her stay focused during a race, words like compass.

She said she was nervous at the Worlds as the only Canadian woman, having never been to an international event of that calibre. She placed 67th out of 71 women in the long and middle distance races, and did not qualify for the sprint final.

“When I first saw the results I was a little disappointed with myself but I kind of had a reality check after I talked to our coach, and I felt a little better,” she said.

MacKeigan said the Canadian coach reminded her that some of the women she raced against were sponsored athletes whose job it is to train and compete full-time.

She expects to see some of them here.

She’s excited about competing in the North American and Canadian championships, and admits she’s still is a little nervous, but not as nervous as she was in Latvia.

Competing at home with others she knows helps, said MacKeigan, who’s registered in elite women’s class.

She said in Latvia she spoke with athletes from Hong Kong who were planning to attend, and the Canadian men spoke with Estonians who were also planning to travel here.

It’s not just the draw of major competitions, but also the allure of visiting Northern Canada and the Yukon, she said.

“There is going to be people from the Worlds coming to the North Americans as well because it is the first time it’s ever been held North of 60.”

The race director explained that today is being used as a practice day for athletes at the Magnusson Trails off the Grey Mountain Road. It’s an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the type of wooded landscape the Yukon presents and a chance to learn about the style of maps being used for the competition, Jones said.

He explained of the $100,000-plus cost of hosting and preparing for the championships, approximately $50,000 went into developing the maps in the last couple of years.

Last summer, for instance, the local association paid two specialized teams of two to come over from Europe and do the work necessary to develop highly detailed maps for the competitions, he pointed out.

Jones said they’ve also brought in technical help to assist with the events.

So far, he said, it seems that there’s been no issue with accommodations.

Athletes are sprinkled through the local hotels, B & Bs, campgrounds, and such.

“So I think it is going OK.”

Lotteries Yukon and the business community in general has stepped up, said Jones.

“We had great local support from a variety of sponsors. They understood how important it was to get extra assistance from them to put this event on.”

The North American Championships end Tuesday. There’s a break Wednesday, and then the Canadian championships go Thursday and Friday.

The Canadian championships are actually being organized by the Greater Vancouver Orienteering Club and Calgary’s Foothills Wanderers Orienteering Club.

Conservation officer Jim Welsh provided a bear-aware workshop this morning at the parking lot for the Magnusson Trails.