Until Next Time!

Hello again!While we safely arrived back in Ottawa on Thursday, we would like to share some more stories from our incredible last week in Pond Inlet!Last Friday, our time in the classroom was a bit limited by extracurricular activities but we managed to find time to finish up our lessons on mental health, goal setting, and leadership. We got our students to perform different variations of the Human Knot, which they seemed to really enjoy! Since we had finished up most of our lessons the week prior, this week allowed us to spend some quality time playing fun games and activities with our students. Our days were packed full of fun things inside and out of the classroom!With the Graduation Dinner and Ceremony quickly approaching we spent many hours assisting the teachers and students at Nasivvik with set up. After a couple days of hard work the gym looked absolutely amazing! Every decoration that you could imagine that comes in blue and silver covered the stage, walls, ceiling, and tables. We had a blast setting up a photo booth from the graduates to use with their friends and families #nasivvikclassof2017. We were fortunate enough to attend the Graduation Dinner on Monday evening and the Ceremony on Tuesday. Both were amazing! It was incredible to see the graduates walk across the stage to receive the diplomas they had worked so hard for. Congratulations again to the Class of 2017! It was such an honour for us to be a part of your big day!Throughout our stay, the weather in Pond Inlet has warmed up and we even started to break a sweat walking uphill to school in the mornings! Temperatures hovering around 0 combined with the sun constantly shining made for a beautiful last week. The ice has started to melt with visible surface water and leads in places near the land. Our accommodations this week had an incredible beautiful view of the ice and the mountains! We loved to sit and watch people pack up their qamutiiks to go out hunting or camping.We let our love for bannock continue to be an inspiration this week. With the help of our amazing host Aileen, we managed to make some of our own! Though we are not experts by any means, it turned out pretty well for our first try. We made one plain bannock and one raisin bannock and both were gone by the end of the night.Wednesday was filled with a lot of goodbyes or, as we preferred to say, "Until next time”. We are beyond grateful to the amazing community of Pond Inlet for welcoming us into their home and for teaching us so much in these last 6 weeks. Thank you to the teachers and staff at Nasivvik High School and Elementary School for your guidance and support. Thank you to the community members for being so welcoming. You made Pond Inlet feel like our home away from home. Lastly, thank you to our students for sharing your energy and creativity with us. It has been the greatest honour getting to know you. We will miss Pond every day and think of you always!After two very sleepy plane rides, we safely arrived home in Ottawa on Thursday evening, just in time to make it home for Krista’s graduation!Before we sign off, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank you everyone who has played a part in this incredible journey. We are eternally grateful for your love and support. We are sincerely going to miss this community and everyone in it.Until next time,Krista and Emma