Carpentry to return to Victor Sammurtok School
New woodshop to be installed for Chesterfield Inlet students before Christmas break
Victor Sammurtok School principal Jacques Theriault plans to install a new woodworking shop at his school in time for this year’s second semester. (Photo by Daron Letts)
Woodworking will soon be back on the curriculum at Chesterfield Inlet’s Victor Sammurtok School following a three-year absence.
“There is so much value in a woodshop,” said principal Jacques Theriault during an interview earlier this semester. “With woodworking, we’re introducing a trade and there’s a lifetime career right there.”
The new woodshop is expected to be in operation in time to offer the program to students by mid-January, he added.
The school had a functioning woodshop in the past, but former staff converted the space into a weight room following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The room is still equipped with industrial ventilation and wiring to accommodate the electrical demands of a fully functioning shop.
When Theriault became principal in January 2025, he immediately began searching for funders to reinstate the woodshop, though he admired the quality of the weight room, he said.
It boasts a state-of-the-art rowing machine that connects to other rowers online and other high-end exercise equipment. The exercise space will move into a smaller room across the hall, Theriault said.
Under the federal government’s Smart Cities Challenge, the Nunavut-based non-profit Katinnganiq Makerspace Network provided the approximately $100,000 needed to reinstate the woodshop.
The newly purchased equipment is currently in a sea can near the community dock.
The machines, all of which feature instant-stop safety functions and kill switches, include a table saw, drill press, router, bandsaw, table grinder, belt and disc sander, scroll saw, miter saw, jointer, plainer, and a wood lathe.
The school also purchased goggles and “every safety thing that you can buy for a woodshop,” he added.
The school even has a freshly trained instructor in longtime math and science teacher Glen Brocklebank.
Last year, Brocklebank, who previously taught woodworking at the school, completed eight months of professional development training in construction and renovation techniques at Georgian College in Owen Sound, Ont.
“I learned some new skills,” Brocklebank said in an interview. “It was a new course to me.”
Work on the woodshop is expected to begin by December, Theriault said.
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