Midnight Sun Complex staff promote healthy living

Midnight Sun Complex staff promote healthy living

Published 9:35 am Thursday, February 26, 2026

Inuvik’s Midnight Sun Recreation Complex (MSC) is helping residents overcome the long Arctic winter.

The MSC offers a variety of in-house fitness programs.

One of the more popular programs is the boot camp fitness classes offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays, according to Trace Bozarth, Inuvik’s director of parks and recreation.

The boot camps, available to those age 16 and over, have been a staple of the complex for years. Fitness instructors are able tailor the classes to a variety of fitness levels, making them inclusive for beginners, intermediates and professionals, according to Bozarth.

“We’re pretty proud of that one,” he said.

The MSC also offers free public skating, Monday through Friday. The complex helps to make skating more accessible to the community by providing skates for residents who may not otherwise have access to them.

The NWT Recreation and Parks Association recently provided funding to support the MSC’s programming, including ‘Swim to Survive’ funding, and ‘Get Active’ grants. This funding allowed the MSC to offer no-cost swimming lessons to schools in the area, and helped create three no-cost, introductory fitness classes.

As part of the retooling of the MSC’s strategic plan through to 2030, the complex hopes to bolster its fitness programs and certify more aquafit instructors in the near future, said Bozarth.

“That’s a program that we’ve run in the past, and it has seen a super high response and big popularity throughout the times that it’s run,” he said.

Yoga is another highly popular program. Bozarth said the discipline offers a complementary balance to the boot camp, noting, “it goes hand-in-hand with the boot camp, with the strength training, being able to stretch out in between.”

The MSC has also recently installed a “health box.”

In partnership with the Northern Lights Regional Health Centre in Fort McMurray, Alta., the vending-machine type dispenser offers residents a range of healthcare products, from pregnancy tests to hand and foot warmers, toothbrushes, and even toques, all at no cost.

“We’re really happy to have that,” said Bozarth.

In addition to the in-house fitness programs offered by the town, the MSC also hosts social health programming through a variety of community-partnership events.

Every second Saturday, the MSC, in cooperation with the Inuvik Tourism Department, provides an “Arctic Market.” The event invites local vendors to ply their wares, and invites residents to enjoy live music while they browse.

“People seem to be really big fans of that,” Bozarth remarked.

Building off of the Arctic Market, MSC will be debuting a coffee house and open mic night. The event will feature specialty coffees and a variety of musical guests.

“That is all within the MSC. Between our own events and a number of private bookings, there isn’t a day in February that there isn’t something happening,” said Bozarth.

The complex has 36 employees across recreation, aquatics and maintenance. That number grows to about 45 in the summer with the addition of summer camp leaders and summer students on the maintenance side, he noted.

The gist of the MSC’s mission statement, he added, is to provide programming for every demographic within the community, ensuring the complex’s ability to meet the social and physical needs of all residents.