Chantell enjoys a windy day by the ocean in Campbell River, BC.

Hi, my name is Chantell Orlias and I’m from the small community of Colville Lake, NT. In the Canadian Phase of NYA, things have been pretty awesome so far. I’ve met a lot of people and I have gotten to do a lot of travelling, which I love.

I am really enjoying my time in the south and the work experience here in Campbell River, BC. I am working at a bakery for my summer volunteering placement. The place is small but it gets pretty busy some days. The people who work here are pretty cool and really fun to work with. I start work pretty early, at 6am, but I’ve always managed to get up and get to work on time. My placement buddy and I have a host mother who is pretty cool, and she is currently fostering two young kids with our stay in her home which I think is awesome. She is a social worker.

The time spent here has taken me by surprise, it is really beautiful here on Vancouver Island. It’s hot out most days but there is always wind so that is what makes this place so much better, for me anyways. We’ve been to Victoria, which was pretty amazing, and on the way there we passed through Nanaimo, which is about an hour and a half away. We got to meet up with some other NYA Participants who were placed on the island also. Overall, things have been great and I have not gotten too homesick. Campbell River has been more than I expected so I’m really grateful for this opportunity.

Cara by the pier in Sidney

Hello, my name is Cara Killiktee and I am from Pond Inlet Nunavut. I am placed in Sidney, BC. My work placement in Sidney is a daycare called Adel’s Play N Discovery House. My work experience involves teaching children the letters of the ABC’s and counting numbers up to 10. The cute little children that I teach in the daycare are from 3-6 years of age, which makes me happy because they are easy to understand and they tend to listen easily. I am happy to be placed in Adel’s Play N Discovery.

For every participant of the Canadian phase, we stay with host families and mine is Glen Brown and Cathy Brown along with their daughter Emily. I am also glad that I was placed with my host family because I get along with them so well (but they spoil me a little too much haha). While living here for five weeks I have noticed some different things here than in my home community. The differences I see is that their plants are longer than our shrubs, and they have many more kinds of bugs. The bugs I commonly see back home are black flies and mosquitos, but here they have all types, including wasps. What I also find different is the horses (THEY ARE HUGE! Unlike the dogs I see back home!) how I see the horses is that they are just big dogs to me! Just kidding, they are very unique animals!

I see some similarities in the culture here in Sidney with ours back home. For example, I have seen some Indigenous art designs here of their spirits, which are unique but also familiar to me. Their sewing techniques are pretty similar too – they make outdoor footwear here similar to our kamiks back home.

In the past few weeks here in Sidney, my host parents took me to the old car show that was held in Victoria BC. I saw some awesome old cars and trucks that were made in 1920’s-1980’s. I found it fascinating because I’m a bit obsessed with old-fashioned cars. With my work placement, my supervisors and I took the children to the Vancouver Aquarium and they loved it. (I sure did too!) It was fantastic because we got to see an octopus! Last but not least, of all my experiences here in Sidney, my favourite was when my host father took me on a ferry ride to the islands nearby. I loved every minute of it because it had also reminded me of the time I was on the CCGS Amundsen Coast Guard ship. While on the ferry, my host father let me stand on the bridge to get a good view and it was beautiful! I sure would like to come back here to BC to see my host family one day. My experiences ended with a trip to Vancouver with my host mother.  Thanks to everyone who helped make this possible.

Savanna volunteered as a youth leader at a YMCA camp for kids.

Hello everyone! My name is Savanna Pikuyak. I’m from Hall Beach, Nunavut. I’m a participant in the Canadian Program with Northern Youth Abroad and I was placed in Ottawa, Ontario volunteering at a YMCA youth summer camp with an age group from 6-9. I thought I never had a chance to go this year since I was an Alternate but I get a call the day before Orientation from NYA asking if I can go the next day, of course I said yes. I had a loving and welcoming host family with whom I got really close. My host parents welcomed many international students into their home but never from their own country, so it was a first for everybody. I took buses going to work so I became independent going to other places like the mall and other parts of Ottawa. The activities I did during the summer were: going to go see the Northern Lights Show downtown at the Parliament Hill, seeing horses for the first time, going to the National Art Gallery, and playing in the pool with my triplet host brothers and sister! Living in the south gave me the opportunity to get glasses. I had a great time at Orientation and Re-Orientation because I learned about other cultures and met other youth like me. I encourage youth from my community to apply for this program because I want them to experience what’s it like to live in the south and the opportunities you have while living here. NYA gives you the chance to be part of something big and I really enjoyed my experience!

Sally, right, with fellow NYA Next Participant Rahabi at NYA’s Orientation Camp in Ottawa. (Photo Credit: Thorsten Gohl)

My summer of 2016 is going well. I met new friends from NU & NWT and I already knew some from last year in 2015. At orientation we had fun activities like ice breakers to get to know everyone. We played one game where we were passing a ball to each other and memorizing who we gave the ball to. We had to say “thank you” and the name of the person who gave us the ball, then say “here you go” and the name of the next person we were passing it to. It was fun and we kept getting mixed up. The second week we met Mexican people also living at Algonquin College. It was their first day here and we were glad to meet them and we became good friends with all of them. Camping was a good experience too, cause it was my first time to camp in the city, but when we got there it was hardcore raining and we were setting up tents. The next day camping we went to the beach to go swimming then we got to go kayaking and canoeing. It was also my first time kayaking & canoeing and it was really fun. It’s always good to try new things. The last night of camping at around 1:35am our tent almost fell on us. It was raining too so four of us had to fix it. I went to go wake up the two leaders to go help so they did, and when we were done someone saw a frog that was almost going in the tent & she freaked out. She was like “omg omg the frog might go in!” while jumping hahahha! I thought she was going to faint or fall but she didn’t hahahha! but at the end it was ok. Bec the Executive Director had the NYA Nexters over for dinner and I loved it. It was sooo good, especially the desserts. When we were done we got to talk around with everyone. Summer is going well so far and I love it so much. We’re surrounded by good people and we support each other. Carpentry is going well too. I like learning new things and I finished constructing my picture frame. We learned how & what to use for the wood. Thank you for your time for reading this haha 🙂

Napassi participates in a group activity on a sunny day at NYA’s Orientation Camp

Carpentry is now my favourite thing to do. I am thankful for Northern Youth Abroad staff for giving me this opportunity. I never thought I would like/love carpentry. I learned how to use tools but I still need to learn more about chiseling. I learned how to build a dog house and a picture frame. I cannot wait to attend carpentry classes next year. I also know where to go if I ever need help with anything. I learned how much it would cost to go to school here. $5200. I really enjoyed going to carpentry classes, although there were frustrations here and there but I still loved it. The most challenging thing I did was the picture frame, even built my frame crooked. I chose this program because I love the wood working. I will recommend this field work to the high school in Arctic bay. I found this carpentry because NYA introduced me to it.

Robert (left) demonstrates Inuit Games with fellow Participant James during a presentation at Algonquin College. (Photo Credit: Thorsten Gohl)

Hi my name is Robert Isluanik, I’m from Arviat, NU.

During Orientation I met a lot of participants from other communities in Nunavut and Northwest Territories. We went to go see the Ottawa Champions baseball game which was fun to do again this year. That took place during our orientation week at Macksimming. We did fun activities at orientation like nature walk, team building activities, Let’s Talk Science, and jeopardy.

We ate our last orientation dinner at Boston Pizza, I had some delicious pizza there. After orientation camp, we moved into Algonquin residence. I like my roommate James a lot because we mostly speak Inuktitut to each other because I don’t usually speak a lot of English.

Soon after we moved in we started our construction trades class. We have built picture frames and animal housing structures. I’m really enjoying construction class because I really want to become a carpenter. I’m on a team with Chris and Justina building our house. My favourite tool to use is the table saw. Few days later, after we settled here in Algonquin, we went to camping at Fitzroy provincial park, we were having so much fun there, we went to beach, played some sports, talked about ghost stories. We had a great weekend there.

My favourite part of the program right now was going to the movie theatres and carpentry class. In the theatre we saw the Purge movie. It was a little bit scary but I was okay sleeping at night still. This program is fun because I get to see my Arviat friends and my uncle and my host parents from my Canadian Phase last year too at Parliament Hill.

(Photo Credit: Thorsten Gohl)

My Personal Learning Project was at the Algonquin College, learning about the General Pre-Trades program. I worked with John, he works at Algonquin, he’s the guy to talk to when you need any sort of help. I found this organization through NYA. I chose this Personal Learning Project because, well I’m really interested in Carpentry and also into Welding or Electrician, I’m just not very sure if I want to get into those courses so I chose general pre-trades for that reason. It will give me a little taste of all those courses and also they’re all hands on work which I really like to do, I love keeping my hands busy. After taking the that course I think I’ll choose the one that I feel more comfortable with and more happy with. What I did during the Personal Learning Project with John, was he was giving me a tour around the campus and also taking a look at the classes I might be taking, and talking about when I should apply for the course and also talking about where it would be best for me to get an apartment and yeah just mostly talking about general pre-trades. What I have learned through this Personal Learning Project is how to apply for college and where to apply and also getting to know what I’m getting into if I’m applying. Getting to know the campus more, knowing who to talk to talk to when I need it, and that they can give me support if I feel like I might drop out or fail a class. I would definitely recommend this to others, I think it’s a great course and also a great school, they have all the help you need, for example if you have financial problems, home sickness or if you drop out or fail your course/class they’re there if you need help, just don’t be scared to ask. This is what I’m looking forward to doing next fall.

I will be attending Nunavut Sivuniksavut this fall. After I finish NS I want to apply to Algonquin and go for general pre-trades. Yeah that’s about it for my personal learning project, hopefully you guys enjoyed it.

Topsy presents a skit to NYA Canadian Program Participants with fellow NYA Nexter Chris while at NYA’s Orientation Camp in Ottawa. (Photo Credit: Thorsten Gohl)

To explore my options I met up with our Participant Achievement Coach Jeff during my construction class. We talked about how I am interested in language learning and the arts. I could not decide if I wanted a language class or something to do with art. There were too many good options. Jeff started to make arrangements soon after the meeting to make my personal learning project happen. Since I was interested in languages, it helped that another participant was as well; so I chose to learn Italian with her.

Later, I was told I was set up with two Italian speaking people, Lisa and Jennifer. We sat at a library and they brought over some Italian text books. They taught us some introductions in Italian, such as “io sono…” “ ciao, come stai” “sto bene, grazie” and much more and we took notes. They also travelled a lot, which I am interested too. They mentioned where they’ve been to South east Asia and to a lot of places in Italy. They gave us travelling tips about Italy and Asia and what to be prepared for.

I encourage learning languages, especially your native language, to everyone because it can take you anywhere and it is very beneficial health wise and just fun in general.

Loriann (middle-left) with her host family – Dad Brandon, Mom Cheryl and Host Buddy Chance.

Hi, my name is Lori-Ann Parr! I was placed in St. Catharines, Ontario and my work placement was at the YMCA Day Camp. I worked with lots of kids and learned many new things this summer. My host mom’s name was Cheryl and my host dad’s name was Brandon. They had 2 kids, 2 dogs, and 3 cats. My host buddy Chance and I really enjoyed staying with them in St. Catharines and did lots of activities together. We went to Marine Land and I was so scared to go on the sky screamer, but my host buddy and my host sister really encouraged me to go on it and I conquered my fears! Me and Chance also went to the beach many times and by the end of the summer I was super tan. I also cut my hair super short and I’m really excited to go back home and show my friends and family. However, although I’m going home very soon, I’ll really miss the kids at work and the other NYA participants. It’s been an amazing time and we’ve made such great memories this summer. I hope to see all of you again soon.

Peace out!