Hey, my name is Matt Kanayok. I’m eighteen and from Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories. I was first involved with Northern Youth Abroad last year as a Canadian Participant, where I was placed in Belleville, Ontario. This year I am in the NEXT program. This means that I along with other youth from the North get to experience post-secondary life at Algonquin College for a month.

It was hectic for me at first to adjust and come to the conclusion that this was what the beginning of the rest of my life away from my home and family would feel like, and I really wanted to go home the moment I hit that realization. Luckily, I have good friends here and supportive group leaders that kept me on the right track, and have since then started to enjoy my time in Ottawa!

After settling in we had a tour of Algonquin College, and I was slightly overwhelmed by the amount of people everywhere (I‘m coming from a town of 450), but regardless I enjoyed it. My favourite tour was the one we had at Parliament Hill where I sadly did not high-five Trudeau. Overall, I had a great time learning more about Canada’s history and the meaning behind the architecture of the building (The statue of Victoria? Amazing).

We also started our construction class and I thought I was going to be terrible at it because I’m not good at anything related to math, but I actually did pretty well (I hope). We’ll start our construction of dog houses after a weekend camping trip, so I’m looking forward to that.

Anyway, I’m enjoying my time so far and I’m excited for the rest of the summer!

Sincerely, Matt