Still they said, almost in unison, "It was definitely worth it."

The four wrestlers, Tris and Robby Brymer, Brittney Wyatt and Zenon Martushev all came home with medals, or ulus, as they're called.

Team Alaska won the team wrestling title, Martushev took two bronze and the team gold and the Brymer brothers and Wyatt claimed three gold each.

But it was the experience, they said, of meeting new people of new cultures, that will stick with them.

Their coach for the trip, Steve Wolfe, said he couldn't be prouder of the kids who went.

"It's like the Olympics of the north," he said. "We were the only contingent from the U.S. It was a great experience and to have the national anthem play when they won gold was something they'll remember."

The Arctic Winter Games is a circumpolar sport competition for northern and arctic athletes that attracts participants from Russia, Scandanavia, Greenland, Nothern Canada and Alaska every two years.

The Games were held on the Kenai Peninsula in 2006 and they promote the sharing of cultures between northern neighbors.

The kids competed in both freestyle and Inuit wrestling a form that relies mostly on upper body strength and did well, Wolfe said.

Martushev, who goes to school at Voznesenka and speaks English and Russian, was also a pretty popular guy among the Russian contingent.

"Because he could speak Russian and could translate we got to meet all the Russian kids," Wyatt said. "But we didn't know what they were saying half the time."

Wyatt also got a kick out of competing against girl wrestlers instead of the boys like back home. Of the three other teams in competition, Team Alaska is the only one that allows boys and girls to compete against each other.

"They thought it was kind of weird that we wrestled the boys," Wyatt said.

Wolfe said the kids handled themselves well at the games and did everything he asked them to do.

"They were a great tribute to Alaska," he said.

Overall, Team Alaska dominated the final medal count with 202 total (74 gold, 55 silver and 73 bronze). Northwest Territories was second with 111.

For complete results visit www.awg.ca.

Ben Stuart can be reached at ben.stuart@homernews.com.