Former Collingwood resident Katie Bell probably expected to work a little closer to home when she became a teacher, but her move up north to Nunavut ended up changing a lot of lives in a very positive way, including her own.
After finding work in Rankin Inlet in Nunavut nearly two years ago, Bell is returning home to Toronto this month and she isn’t coming back alone. Joining the teacher will be 32 young hockey players who will experience the trip of a lifetime thanks in part to their teacher and Experiences Canada, a charity funded by the Government of Canada Department of Canadian Heritage that includes a homestay exchange between two groups of Canadian youth with each one coming from different parts of Canada.
“I actually wasn’t able to get a job in Collingwood. I wanted full time, I wanted my own classroom and I wanted to see if I could bring something to the community and do more things, like athletics,” Katie Bell told JT McVeigh of The Enterprise-Bulletin. “I am very big into sports and love the kids and that’s why I’m involved with the hockey.”
The kids coming from Nunavut will get the entire Northern Exchange experience, which will include a trip to an NHL and AHL game, trips to the Royal Ontario Museum, Hockey Hall of Fame, Niagara Falls and other activities such as nature walks and plenty of hockey. That’s not it, though. The young hockey players will also watch a Toronto Maple Leafs practice, will get to tour the dressing rooms, meet NHL Alumni, and take in a Cirque du Soleil show. Meanwhile, the kids heading north to Nunavut in April will experience ice fishing, square dancing and local cuisine.
So far a variety of big and small sponsors have come on board to help with these amazing once-in-a-lifetime trips, such as Honda Canada and The Packaging Company, and their contributions are greatly appreciated by the kids and their families who will surely learn a lot and see things they probably never thought they would see before.
(H/T The Enterprise Bulletin)
