Joshua’s journey of self-discovery

CHARLOTTE PETRIE

A seven-month journey of personal growth changed Joshua Kiguktak’s life forever.

Kiguktak, of Iqaluit, was one of 11 young adults across Canada chosen to participate in Katimavik, a national youth service learning program. His experience was filled with new worlds, new friendships and new values.

“I’ve got more confidence now,” Kiguktak says. “I learned that if you work on something and just give it a little bit of time and keep doing it, you’ll succeed.”

Katimavik, an Inuktitut word meaning “meeting place,” provides young Canadians between the ages of 17 and 21 with diversified work experience with non-profit organizations.

In addition to working 35 hours per week on community projects, the group takes part in a learning program that focuses on developing leadership skills, second language proficiency, cultural discovery, environmental protection and healthy living.

Before he was accepted into the program, Kiguktak was a 20-year-old high school dropout killing time working at a local gas bar, then as a security guard at the legislative assembly and the hospital.

Since his return from the Katimavik cross-country tour last April he has applied to Arctic College, where he wants to get his GED and then go on to fulfill his career goals.

“Personally, [the experience] really helped me. I’ve got more confidence that I can go to college. I want to become a wildlife officer because I really like the outdoors.”

What that experience entailed was living and working in three different provinces for about two months each. The group spent time in Shelburn, Nova Scotia; Pinawa, Manitoba; and Prince George, British Columbia.

Kiguktak volunteered in a home for elderly and disabled people in Shelburn; painted the inside of a mall and helped out at a children’s group home in Pinawa; and worked at an art gallery cleaning and setting up exhibits in Prince George.

Besides the challenges of work, the group had to learn to live together and function as a team when it came to household chores, shopping and budgeting the $250 per week they were given to feed the entire group plus a resident supervisor.

“The first two weeks was kind of hard,” Joshua reveals. “It was hard trying to get along when nobody knew each other. It was all go, go, go.”

Did he like this new pace?

“Yeah … no, not really,” he finally admits with a laugh.

Never having been off Baffin Island, his arrival in Shelburn was a stunner.

“I went there in the fall. I’d never seen trees before. [The leaves] were different colours — yellow, green and red,” he says excitedly.

Growing up with brothers prepared him for the time spent working in a group home in Pinawa, he jokes. They were “tough kids to work with, a real handful,” he says.

Wintertime in Prince George threw Joshua for a loop. He wasn’t expecting to encounter temperatures as low as -30 C. But exposure to the world of art at the gallery where he was working, made up for the cooler temperatures.

“I’d never seen wood carvings before. That was neat. There were quite a few different styles of carvings and there was a little story about each one,” he says with fascination.

But best of all was meeting so many interesting and friendly people with different backgrounds, and the friendships he carved out among the group of 11 newly motivated souls.

“We still keep in contact by e-mail, and we’re planning to see each other again for a week in Ottawa this November.”

The federal government recently announced it was investing an additional $17 million over two years in Katimavik.