As a young kid growing up in the Nass Valley region of northwestern B.C., Seth Williams didn't have a discus, a steel shot or a javelin to whip his throwing arm into shape.
Instead, he tossed cut-up tree logs onto trucks as part of his daily firewood gathering chores. It was hard work but it obviously served him well.
The 15-year-old from New Aiyanch won all the throwing events he entered over the weekend at the Spruce Capital track and field meet at Masich Place Stadium, the final competition for Williams and his fellow Nisga'a Nation track team members before they head to Regina for the North American Indigenous Games, July 20-27.
His runs and jumps were also superb. Williams covered 9.90m in the triple jump, his shot put traveled 11.0 metres and threw the discus 33.60m, and his javelin toss went 32.33m -- all meet records. He and Skylar Guno of Nisga'a shared a meet record in high jump, both reaching 1.35m.
Peter Cross, who coached the Canadian relay teams at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, started the Nisga'a track team six years ago and they've been coming to Prince George for meets ever since. The 10-member team competed in blustery bone-chilling conditions in the appropriately-named Sub-Zero meet in early May. While most athletes shivered in misery at the track, an unbothered Williams set five personal bests that day.
"I never get cold," said Williams.
Williams enters eight or nine events in every meet and Cross wishes he could capture his enthusiasm and systematic approach to be able to focus on each of his events, one right after the other. To a large degree, his Nisga'a Nation teammates followed his lead.
"They're doing very well at this meet, a lot of personal bests and a lot of firsts and seconds, we're quite pleased with the performances," said Cross.
Cross, 76, a native of Toronto, coached the Olympic men's 4X400m relay team (Ian Seale, Don Domansky, Leighton Hope, and Brian Saunders) to a fourth-place finish in Montreal, while the 4X100m team (Hugh Spooner, Marvin Nash, Albin Dukowski, and Hugh Fraser) finished eighth. Cross left the national team when Canada agreed to join the boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, after he'd spent three years training the team at Clemson University in South Carolina. He came to the Nass Valley to take job as a school teacher and has lived there for the past 33 years.
Located in the Nass River region of north of Terrace, Nisga'a nation is home to about 4,000 people who mainly live in four villages -- New Aiyansh, Canyon City, Greenville, and Kincolith. The villages get together to form basketball and hockey teams but until Cross started up track and field there wasn't much athletic interaction in the summer months that involved all four communities.
"We run on a dirt track that's so bad they run on the grass, but the kids are good and they want to train year-round," said Cross. "They start in September and work on weight training until we're ready to step outdoors for a short period of time. We have so few opportunities to compete on superior surfaces.
"These people have raised the standard of track quite substantially. They're pretty much the only group of young athletes willing to work year-round on one sport."
The Nisga'a track team makes up one-quarter of Team B.C. for the North America Indigenous Games. Marlyn Morven, 16, is the only female Nisga'a athlete among nine boys. She and 17-year-olds Ashneel Rai and Justin Stewart started track four years ago and are the longest-serving members of the Nisga'a team.
"When I joined there were only five of us and the year before that there were only three, so each year it's getting bigger and more kids are getting involved," said Morven who was third in the senior girls 200m, second in the 400m and second in the long jump.
"It's nice when we come here because we don't have a [jumping] pit when we train. Hopefully in Vancouver there will be a track where I train."
Morven plans to begin studying sports science in September at Douglas College in New Westminster and she plans to continue her track career when she transfers to UBC for kinesiology. Rai will attend Simon Fraser University majoring in sciences.
Stewart rolled his ankle in the long jump Sunday and if he was hurting he didn't let the pain hinder him. There were no other runners within five metres of him as crossed the finish to win the 16-17-year-old boys 200m final. He also entered nine events.
"It's a lot better to run with spikes on a rubber track, it's way faster," said Stewart. "It's a lot better since we started training more because you have something to do.
"It's kind of nervewracking that we're going to Indigenous Games because the best in Canada will be there, but it's exciting too."
