Members of Team Nunavut enter the Crystal Centre in Grande Prairie, Alta., as part of the Arctic Winter Games' opening ceremony on Sunday night. (Chantal Dubuc/CBC)

Young athletes from circumpolar nations are in Grande Prairie, Alta., to compete in the 21st Arctic Winter Games.

About 2,000 youths, coaches and fans are expected to descend on the northern Alberta city for the games, which run until Saturday.

Sunday night's opening ceremony, titled, "A Hero's Journey," linked the oral teachings and traditions of northern indigenous peoples to the multicultural realities of the modern world.

One of the highlights was the arrival of teams from Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Yukon, northern Alberta, northern Quebec, Alaska, Greenland, Scandinavia and Russia.

Athletes are competing in 21 indoor and outdoor sporting events, including Dene and Arctic indigenous games. As well, cultural performers from each team will showcase music and art from their respective regions.

Grande Prairie is the southernmost community to ever host the Arctic Winter Games, which more often have been held in communities north of 60. Yellowknife hosted the last games in 2008, and Whitehorse will host the next event in 2012.

Organizers in Grande Prairie have spent three years preparing for the games, but most recently they have been dealing with unseasonably warm weather.

Trails under water

Daytime temperatures are forecast to rise to 6 C this week in the city, where it would normally be –1 C.

Outdoor competition organizers are trying to restore the snowshoeing and dog-mushing venue, where some of the trails are under water.

Officials have brought in snow from a supply they had stockpiled over the winter. They have also scheduled races for earlier in the day, and rerouted and shortened some trails.

"The trail is a little sloppy but they're doing a good job trying to bring in snow and they're really packing it up," said Gillian Van Rueven, a snowshoeing coach from Fort McPherson, N.W.T.

"It's not bad. I mean, the kids will run in anything — they're tough kids."

Despite the wet conditions, most coaches and athletes have been keeping a sense of humour in Grande Prairie, which may not normally be considered to be an "Arctic" city.

"There's things called trees that we're not used to, and that's going to be a little bit of a surprise to our dogs," said John Hickes, a dog-mushing coach from Rankin Inlet, Nunavut.