PASSING THE TORCH THROUGH NATIVE HANDS

Vancouver Olympic organizers will unveil the 35,000-kilometre route of the torch relay for the 2010 Winter Games today. Billed as the longest route ever for the Olympic flame in a single country, the torch will be carried by 12,000 runners during its 100-day journey, which will start in November of next year. Beginning at 1:30 (ET), tune in to globeandmail.com for detailed coverage of the historic route.

ROD MICKLEBURGH

With a report from Josh Wingrove

November 21, 2008 Globe and Mail

VANCOUVER -- At least 100 aboriginal communities will be part of the marathon, cross-country Olympic torch relay, marking the largest involvement by an indigenous people in the history of the celebratory event, sources said yesterday.

Although details of the 35,000-kilometre route are being kept under wraps until today's formal announcement, an official with the Assembly of First Nations in Ottawa said the national organization had taken part in extensive discussion with 2010 Olympic organizers about native participation in the relay.

"I can say that the torch will pass through a significant number of aboriginal communities, over 100," said the official, who did not want to be quoted by name. "We have worked closely with VANOC [the Vancouver 2010 Organizing Committee], and we are on board."

The news puts an end to speculation about wide-scale native resistance to participating in the high-profile relay, fuelled by remarks earlier this year from AFN chief Phil Fontaine. Mr. Fontaine had hinted that continuing native poverty could provoke relay protests similar to those that greeted the Olympic torch heading to China for the 2008 Summer Games.

Since then, however, representatives of VANOC and the supportive Four Host First Nations, on whose traditional territory the Winter Olympics will take place, have engaged in intense consultations with native leaders across Canada.

The $31-million relay, partly underwritten by the federal government, is billed as the longest route ever for the Olympic flame in a single country.

The torch will be carried by 12,000 runners during its 100-day journey, beginning next year in November.

All told, it is expected to pass through more than 1,000 communities. About 200 locations will be designated as "celebration centres" for special events associated with the torch's passage through the area.

VANOC head John Furlong has said that selecting which places get the torch, and which do not, is one of the organizing committee's most agonizing and difficult decisions.

Tewanee Joseph, executive director of the Four Host First Nations Secretariat, said he has been to all western provinces and the Yukon, meeting with chiefs and inviting them to have their communities involved.

He said VANOC deserves "real credit" for making the host native groups an official partner of the 2010 Games and taking the relationship seriously. "There is real mutual respect, and I'm absolutely delighted to see how far we've come."

Such feelings, however, are far from unanimous among native leaders.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, outspoken president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, said it's difficult to get excited about "a grandiose, multimillion-dollar marketing scheme in the face of the crushing poverty our people face in B.C. and across the country."

When the torch relay was discussed at a UBCIC meeting this week, Grand Chief Phillip said one chief suggested "a gauntlet of Super-Soaker water pistols" greet any appearance of the torch in his community. "There were a lot of chuckles about that."

That is unlikely to happen on the scenic Musqueam Reserve at the mouth of the North Arm of the Fraser River. The Musqueam is one of the Four Host First Nations, and Chief Ernie Campbell confirmed the torch will pass through its territory.

"It's going to reach as many native communities as possible," Chief Campbell said, adding that he didn't know of any local opposition to the relay. "If you're in the Four Host First Nations, naturally the torch should go through those communities."

A spokesman for the Inuit Tapirii Kanatami said his organization has also been in talks with VANOC about the Olympics and the torch relay.

"We are sworn to secrecy but it's definitely going to be in some Arctic communities," he said. "There is a great joy in having the Olympic torch come through."

VANOC has bound communities selected for the torch relay to secrecy before today's announcement, and some native leaders said yesterday that they had no idea whether the torch would end up in their area.

Council of Yukon First Nations Grand Chief Andy Carvill said none of his member bands had been contacted to be part of the run, although they would be "open" to hosting a leg. Chief Richard Nerysoo of the Inuvik First Nation in the Northwest Territories said he hadn't heard anything about the torch run.

Mr. Joseph of the Four Host First Nations, who will be at the unveiling of route details, said he, too, has not been told which native communities are on the list. "But I've heard that 100 is the minimum number that will be involved."

Torch history

Olympic torch relays were unknown until modern times. They have their roots in flame races called lampadedromia held in ancient Greece to honour certain gods. But the first torch relay associated with the modern Olympic Games did not occur until 1936 in Berlin. It was organized by the Nazis who believed that classical Greece was an Aryan forerunner of the modern German Reich and was intended to link the modern and ancient Games.

The relay covered 3,075 kilometres through Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary and Austria and involved 3,331 torchbearers.

Canada has hosted torch relays for two Olympics: the 1976 Montreal Summer Games and the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. Some facts about those relays:

Montreal olympics

Total distance: 775 kilometres

Number of torchbearers: 1,214

Flame: transmitted to Ottawa from Athens via satellite

Cauldron: lit by two people for the first time (Sandra Henderson and Stéphane Préfontaine)

Calgary olympics

Total distance: 18,000 kilometres (within Canada - the longest Olympic torch relay at the time)

Number of torchbearers: 6,500

Modes of transport: foot, dogsled, snowmobile, helicopter, ferry, airplane

Oldest torchbearer: Joseph Chase, 101

Youngest torchbearer: Bruno Levesque, 4 Staff