Four archers, four stories.

Sharp shooters Scott Anderson, Tanisha Leas, Travis Rivest and Shelley Inkster will represent the Yukon at the 2011 Canada Winter Games in Halifax, N.S., starting Feb. 22.

Each of the four archers has a different experience with the sport.

Anderson hunts.

Leas started shooting a couple months ago.

Rivest plays for the Whitehorse Midget Mustangs.

And Inkster medaled at the North American Indigenous Games (NAIG).

Both Anderson and Inkster have roughly the same experience, having taken up archery some three years ago.

"I just started hunting … and then I got into more competitive (shooting),” said 13-year-old Anderson, who nabbed a caribou in 2009 and a black bear in 2010 – with a bow.

The group practises Tuesdays and Thursdays at Christ the King Elementary School with the Whitehorse Archery Club, home to some 22 members, and is coached by Les Johns.

Like Rivest and Leas, the Winter Games will be Anderson's first major competition.

"There's not too many (competitions) around here with the lack of shooters,” Anderson said.

Inkster, 18, won a silver medal at NAIG in 2008 in British Columbia.

She started shooting a couple months before that competition.

"I wasn't thinking too much, I just had fun,” Inkster said, adding that will also be her approach to the Canada Winter Games.

Johns coached at the 2008 Indigenous Games and the 2006 Games in Denver, Colo. Over those two competitions, Yukon archers won 14 medals, he said.

He also coached Team Yukon at the 2007 Canada Winter Games in Whitehorse, where eight athletes – two in each category – competed in the Compound male and female and Recurve male and female categories.

The 2007 Games were a learning experience, Johns said, especially since the Yukon hadn't sent archers to the Canada Games since the 1970s.

He added that in 2007 the quality of the bows – the amount of stabilizers, the type of the arrows, for instance – separated the country's best shooters rather than a steady hand.

"People up here have to support themselves and buy their own equipment; anybody from the south … they can get sponsored for a lot of the equipment,” Johns said.

So results don't depend on skill as much as equipment?

"No, I don't think so. There've been lots of buffalo shot with a stick and an arrow,” he laughed.

At the Canada Games, archers will shoot three targets from 18 metres – three arrows in two minutes.

While distances are similar, the number of athletes to choose from in Ontario, Quebec and B.C. differ greatly from those in the territories, Johns said.

"I hope they make a good showing, and I hope they enjoy themselves, see how the rest of the world lives, and to be good ambassadors of the Yukon. It's going to be a learning process. There's a couple of them that will be old enough for the next Canada Games too.”

Rivest, who started with archery two years ago, agreed that equipment will play a factor in results.

"I'll be shooting against guys that are sponsored by Hoyt that work in pro shots, and they're the country's best. It'll be a challenge, but it's going to be fun, so that's what

I'm looking forward to,” Rivest said.

He added that there are similarities between hitting the target in archery and in hockey.

"With me, it's a hand-eye coordination thing, because I don't have sights (on my bow) and in hockey you don't have sights,” Rivest said.

"It's just repetition, repetition, repetition, and that's the same with this.”

Rivest turned 16-year-old Leas onto the sport just a few months ago.

She's no stranger to competition, however, having competed in hockey at the Arctic Winter Games.

She said picking up a sport and heading to a national competition a few months later is unique to the Yukon.

"Here you can do that. There wasn't a huge competition to get picked,” said Leas, who also participated in Judo in the past.

"It's different for me. I'm used to more physical sports with contact.”