On May 21, the Polarettes announced on their Facebook page that they would have to cancel their summer camps because of COVID-19. But, if this pandemic has taught us anything, it's the situation is fluid and new information is constantly coming forward.

Five days later, after the icing of summer camps, things changed, with the help of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CanNor) the Polarettes were able to announce that yes, in fact, they would be able to host camps this summer.

"We had refunded everybody for camp," said Polarettes head coach Kimberly Jones. "We were sure we weren't going to be running camp. When we cancelled, we had no idea CanNor was going to reach out to us and help us find solutions to the problems we had never thought of.

"CanNor reached out to us and encouraged us to run camp and asked us what we needed. We said we need more space and more bathrooms in order to meet the guidelines."

Jones said space was a big hurdle to running the camp because their bathroom area, entryway and upstairs are all "quite tight."

"That's where campers spend a lot of time when they aren't doing their gymnastics," said Jones.

To help rectify the space issue, CanNor helped the Polarettes secure the Vanier Catholic Secondary School gym and are providing the club with funding to pay for additional PPE (personal protective equipment), additional staffing and sanitation supplies.

Jones said the summer camps typically see about 40 kids a week; however, the club is going to start off small.

"It's going to be about 40 kids a week," said Jones. "The first two weeks we are going to have smaller groups. We are going to have groups of six with two coaches and see how it goes.

"The bigger problem isn't the camp aspect; it's the teaching gymnastics because we're stuck because we can't help the kids in the same way we usually would.

"If a little kid needs help getting on a balance beam, we'd be breaking physical distancing; if they are nervous to walk across the beam, we can't hold their hand like we normally would."

Registration for the summer camps opened Monday, and those who were refunded because of the cancellation will receive priority before it's opened to the public.

On May 14, the Star reported that the Polarettes Gymnastic Club was able to resume gymnastics activities with their competitive members by having a three-phased plan approved by Yukon Health.

Phase three of the plan was slated for June 15 and it was for recreational gymnasts over age eight and all competitive gymnasts. Summer camps fall into this phase as well.

"The other gym at Vanier is in phase three," said Jones. "We will bring in the small group of campers first that are mainly over seven. On July 5, we are going to add in the six-year-olds and expand the group size."

Pre-school camp will not be offered this summer.

"We normally don't do pre-school camp unless we have tons of staff and we weren't planning on running pre-school camp this year. We will explore in the fall about bringing pre-school back."

Jones said they won't be looking at another phase until the fall.

When the competitive team members were allowed to re-enter the gym they had to, and still do, complete a pre-screening assessment with their parents before entering.

Jones said the summer camp plan will remain consistent with the original return strategy.

When the camp is operating at full capacity, Jones said, the groups will stick to their own schedule.

"Each day, the kids will be brought up to their staff member," said Jones. "It's essentially a minicamp. Each group will have their own staff and those groups won't intermingle. They will have their own schedule and operate separately."

This is a process, Jones said, the staff is already familiar with.

Jones said, unlike other years, "it's really a summer camp more than ever."

"Most of gymnastics camp will be outside with our Yukon health plan," said Jones. "It's just easier to physical distance and safer to be outside. Everyone will have a gymnastics class, or parkour, depending on the group.

"The rest of the time we will be outside exploring the trails around Riverdale and we got some funding from Lotteries Yukon to get some physical distancing games for the back field."

When the Polarettes had to close their doors because of COVID-19, they had to lay off all their staff, but they have all be called to return to work.

"This will allow us, with the help of CanNor, to rehire all our staff," said Jones. "We laid off 26 staff and all of them are being called to return to work, so that's pretty amazing for our club. It feels good to have them back."