Skills Yukon had another successful national skills competition recently.
The Skills Canada National Competition 2024 took place at ExpoCité in Quebec City May 30-31.
The competition draws more than 500 competitors on average each year. The Yukon had 23 competitors entered in the event, seven of them post-secondary students.
The youngest competitor was in Grade 8, with the oldest 29 years of age.
Hannah Bjork-Andison, the communications and program coordinator for Skills Yukon, said competitors had to achieve a 60-per-cent qualifying mark in the territorial competition held May 2 to qualify for the nationals.
“If the judge thinks that you achieve that 60 per cent or beyond, then you get invited to the national team,” said Bjork-Andison.
“We definitely want our students to feel successful that they’re going on this trip, embarking on a journey, that they’re not going in blind or anything. So we feel that with that 60-per-cent qualifying mark, they’ll be comfortable competing there. It may not mean that they’ll necessarily win the whole thing, but you never know.”
In order to qualify, the students had to be in grades 8 to 12 or the equivalent to high school.
The post-secondary competitors had to be in an apprenticeship or working towards that.
The students have achieved some success at the nationals.
“Last year, we brought back four medals,” said Bjork-Andison. “And this year they brought back one, but a lot of the youth were really interested in coming again next year.”
“They did really well actually … a lot of the students felt very accomplished in their work, and they know (what) to work on.”
One of the students, Jack Nguyen, won an RBC Best in Region award for getting the highest score on the Yukon team. Nguyen, who’s in Grade 11, won the award in carpentry.
“It’s pretty impressive for this Grade 11 student to be getting that,” said Bjork-Andison.
Phineas Pearson won the silver medal in post-secondary Mechanical Engineering CAD.
A few of the students competed the year before, including Pearson, who won gold in 2023.
Some of them were shocked at the results, good or bad. But, according to Bjork-Andison, there were no tears.
Team Yukon is planning on sending a team again next year.
Bjork-Andison said they might even have to stage some pre-qualifying for trades that are becoming pretty popular, like welding, mobile robotics and carpentry. In fact, there is a waitlist for some categories now.
Bjork-Andison said the robotics competition at the nationals featured large scoreboards and playoff brackets.
Jacob Oleshak and William Pacaud competed in robotics.
Skills Yukon is hoping all the competitors who are qualified will return to the nationals next year.
“The whole point of Skills is to promote children getting into the trades and apprentices staying within the trades, and testing those fine skills that are really complex that maybe people look over or don’t really understand the art to it, and the technical skill that it requires,” explained Bjork-Andison.
“So hopefully they come back and get to prove themselves again.”
In the electrical competition, Bjork-Andison said, they had to create a bunch of circuits and didn’t get to test them out while they were there.
“You do all these circuits, and then you leave and you don’t find out (if you won) until the awards ceremony.”
The competitors had to wait a full day to find out if they won.
Bjork-Andison said the awards ceremony on June 1 was pretty wild.
“They’re pretty crazy. They’re really fun. Everybody is pretty excited.
“And definitely, when we won our medal, and the RBC award, we were going pretty loud as well. It’s almost like a cheering contest.”
“You’re not necessarily a team like a basketball or soccer team would be, but you’re definitely a team in the aspect that you’re there for the same goal in your own trade.”
Bjork-Andison added there were “a lot of new relationships and friendships that formed over our trip, for sure.”
Skills Canada Yukon offers lots of different programming. Their website is skillsyukon.com
They are also found on Facebook and Instagram by searching for Skills Canada Yukon.
