Four communities vie for culture school

The Nunavut government says one of four communities – Arviat, Baker Lake, Igloolik, or Clyde River – will host the Piqqusilirivvik cultural school that the GN wants to build in the near future.

GN officials picked these four communities from a list of nine which submitted proposals.

The GN got $10 million in handouts through the former Liberal government’s Northern Strategy program to cover planning costs for the culture school, but it’s not clear where money will come from to pay the rest of the building’s capital costs.

The Nunavut cultural school would be based on Greenland’s system of “folk” schools, especially the Knud Rasmussen Folk High School in Sisimiut. Built in 1962, the Knud Rasmussen Folk High School was the first of several Greenlandic folk schools built to offer a variety of traditional and academic subjects to high-school-age students.

The GN will consult each of the four short-listed communities over the summer, then pick one in the fall.