Keeping the Mukluk Tradition Alive!

by Sydney Chanasyk

While New Myrnam School is known mainly for our unique projects and activities for students, many would argue that our most well known tradition is Mukluk! Mukluk is our school's annual winter carnival that has been running for the past 38 years. Students in all grades look forward to participating in this tradition each year. The school is grouped into 3 age categories; grades 1-5, grades 6-8, and grades 9-12. Each group does different activities every year, including making fires, cross-country skiing, and coming up with team names and anthems. Since starting in 1985, Mukluk has continued to evolve and include new activities or ideas that students and staff work hard to come up with. Some of the new additions this year include human dogsledding, and hide and seek throughout the school. But this is not how Mukluk has always looked. For its first year, it was simply known as a winter carnival. The events of this year included can stacking, pudding eating, nail pounding, and the infa- mous broomball! Broomball is one of the few activities that has stuck with Mukluk through the years, and is still done today! Also, before the groups were split into age categories, they were split into houses in junior/senior high and elementary. These houses would not only compete against each other to win Mukluk that year, but also competed in different activities throughout the year against each other. The winning house of Mukluk would win medals, and the following teams got ribbons. They even used to crown a king and queen of Mukluk each year! Going back to this year, a not so shy deer came to participate in tug of war with our junior high students; and a huge salad bar and hot chocolate with cookies was provided to all students, put together by parent council. So much work goes into making Mukluk happen each year and we are incredibly thankful for everyone who puts in time and effort in order to keep the tradition alive.