Champion goes to the finals

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Five students from Wabaseemoong School in the semi-isolated community of Wabaseemoong northwest of Kenora, Ont. qualified at a provincial chess competition in October to represent Northern Ontario in a tournament against the United States next April in Thunder Bay.

Ten-year-old Kirk Cameron also won the provincial championship in his age group and has qualified to represent Northwestern Ontario in the Canadian Championship in New Brunswick in July.

That's quite a showing considering the K-12 First Nations school only has 175 or so students and it is only five years since a few were introduced to chess by former teacher William Schroeder.

Nine Wabaseemoong students had previously qualified at the Kenora region finals to play in the sixth annual Northwestern Ontario School Chess Championship, which was held in Thunder Bay on Oct. 21 and 22. Mario Fisher, Brent Fontaine, Jana McDonald, David Southwind, Glenn Fisher, Billy Halverson, Jeremy Halverson and Michael Michaud, along with Cameron, represented Wabaseemoong. This was the highest number of First Nation students ever to compete at that level.

More than 500 competitors played a minimum of five one-hour games. Cameron was among the top 15-three from each age group-who captured trophies, more than $3,000 in prizes and the honor of competing in the Canadian championship.

Cameron got a provincial trophy, a gold medal, $125 in cash, a Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 computer program and a Corel medal, along with the certificate that allows him into the nationals next summer.

But first, he and Mario Fisher, Brent Fontaine, Billy Halverson and Michael Michaud will be going to Thunder Bay to compete internationally against the U.S. players. The students and their teacher Gay McDonald spoke to Windspeaker from their school Nov. 14 and expressed how much they enjoyed learning and playing the game. Some, including Cameron, said they play chess with their parents as well as their schoolmates, and a few are sharpening their skills with competitors on the Internet.

McDonald said they are hoping to hold a First Nations tournament before long.

Altogether, more than 500 students qualified in the provincials to compete at the Canadian national finals, which will be held July 3 to 7 at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B. Cameron was the best of 79 competitors in the 10- and 11-year-old division.

"I'm really happy," he said.

Cameron is the son of Treaty 3 western region chief Adolphus Cameron.

"They're really keen on it and they are always wanting to learn more," the chief said. He added that even though they couldn't all win in Thunder Bay, they weren't disappointed.

"They were more excited about next year."

Chief Cameron said his son is pleased with his accomplishment but is too shy to talk about it. The highlight for the young player so far, according to his father, came last year, "when he went to the provincial finals and he won two of his five games. He had a lot of fun, but he also said he got distracted by the other players, how they played. But he said this year he wasn't going to get distracted. He was going to play his own game. And he was pretty well geared up and before each game he went in there, came out and said, 'I won, I won-I've got to forget this game'." Chief Cameron said his son then went in to the next game and was able to concentrate totally on the task at hand.

"His teacher said she has never seen him that focused."

Most of the 20 Wabaseemoong chess players who are now under the tutelage of McDonald and a few other committed teachers and parents are in Grades 4 to 8 and have been playing two or three years, McDonald said.

"The younger kids start simple and before long they are thinking four, five, six moves ahead." They can beat her too now, she said.