Fund raising helps pay for field trip to tiny, perfectly round body of water

After trekking through a field of slippery, snow-covered boulders for more than an hour, a group of teenaged students from Aupaluk finally reached their goal – the Pingualuit crater lake – on Sept. 17.

Before landing a nearby Lac Laflamme the previous day, the Twin Otter flight circled over the perfectly round lake, as the students ooo-ed and ahh-ed at the sight of the "eye" of Nunavik.

But the closer view of the crater lake was well worth the challenging hike, say the Taqsakallak School students.

For months, fundraising efforts had occupied the students' free time: they collected pop cans for recycling, organized movie nights and held a spaghetti supper to raise money for their trip to the crater at the centre of Nunavik's first provincial park, officially known as le parc national des Pingualuit.

Once the group walked down the crater's slope towards the lake, they found a sheltered spot to rest and enjoyed a picnic lunch, followed by refreshing lake water.

The crater lake is noted for its exceptional water, considered to be among the purest on earth, with virtually no salinity, odor, colour or taste. According to Inuit tradition, the water is also a kind of fountain of youth, with powers the students were eager to test out.

But a stiff wind soon drove the group back from the crater to the park's cozy chalets at Lac Laflamme. A full-blown blizzard the next day also kept them inside, writing, playing board games and talking.

Despite the weather, teacher Kathy Sauveageau says the three nights spent near the crater were a total success.

Students had already learned how Pingualuit resulted from a meteorite crash there 1.4 million years ago. So, the trip taught them was more about each other than anything else, Sauvageau says.

During the trip, students split into two teams and at mealtime one team cooked and the other team washed up. And they pitched in without complaining.

Park guides and Kativik Regional Government staff, Nathalie Girard, Elaisa Alaku, Bobby Qamugaaluk and Peter Kiatainak, the students' teachers, and chaperone Johnny Akpahatak all found them "just amazing," Sauvageau says.

"I know here in the village they're always together, but for them to be together in another place, to get them involved in another place, cooking and washing the dishes, is different," Sauvageau says.

Aupaluk, located 150 kilometres north of Kuujjuaq on Ungava Bay, is the Eastern Arctic's smallest community, so tiny that Nunavimmiut jokingly call Aupaluk "The Big Apple."

But pint-sized Aupaluk is as physically different from New York City, the original "Big Apple," as any place can be. With a population of only 155, Aupaluk is actually more of a "little apple."

Nearly all Aupaluk's residents are Inuit under 25 years old, and you won't hear much English or French spoken in town.

The community consists of about 40 houses located along two connected roads. There's also a co-op store, an airport, co-op-owned transit house, a school, church, childcare centre, power plant, and a handful of other buildings, such as a municipal office, a nursing clinic, and police station.

And that's about it.

Standing near the 55-student Taqsakallak School you can take in all of Aupaluk without even moving.

That's why you might think that a school trip would take students to a city so they could to see what life is like in a larger community.

But Sauveageau and fellow teacher Kathleen Erickson thought their students would benefit more from discovering a place closer to home.

Enthusiasm for fundraising and good school attendance earned five students from Grades 7 to 10 in the French stream and another five from the secondary English stream a chance to go on the Pingualuit trip.

"We wanted to give them the idea that when you work for something, even if it takes a long time, you can reach your goal," Sauvageau says.

Through their fundraising efforts, the students amassed $2,000, but they also received additional funding from the Mountain Equipment Co-op; $9,000 from Ungaluk, Nunavik's Safer Communities program; and $12,000 each from the Brighter Futures program and Kativik School Board.