Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (July 24/02) - Leon Pameok isn't quite sure what to think.

He is going to shake hands with the Pope, arguably the most influential and powerful person in the world -- not to mention the leader of the Catholic church. And when he lands in Toronto, one of the people waiting to greet him will be a 24-year-old from Arviat.

"I still have trouble thinking about it," he said. "It's hard to find out what to think and what to say. It's a really exciting feeling, but I don't know what else. ... I sleep all right. But every time I wake up, I think about it."

That was a week before he actually met John Paul II. The meeting took place yesterday, July 23, when the Pope arrived in Toronto for World Youth Day 2002.

Pameok is one of 70 young people from Nunavut flying south for the momentous gathering of youth from across the world; of those, 35 are from the Kivalliq.

Youths in this case are defined as people from 18-35.

The group from Nunavut flew south July 18. They spent the first few days in Chatham, Ont., before driving to Toronto.

There, they congregated with hundreds of thousands of other youth in a celebration of faith and culture.

Youth from Nunavut staffed a display booth with information about the North and a canvas tent and Coleman stove for boiling tea and cooking bannock. The same youth will entertain with drum dancing, throat singing and other shows of cultural heritage.

The exhibit is located right beside a 10-metre inuksuk erected by the city of Toronto to commemorate World Youth Day.

"We're looking forward to telling the world about Nunavut," said Lynne Rollin, the Arviat-based World Youth Day co-ordinator for the Hudson Bay-Churchill diocese.

Each young person had to raise $1,500 for travel and registration. Fundraising events, conducted over the past 18 months, included raffle sales and charity bingo.

Fabienne Theytaz helped organize the event from Rankin. She said seeing the Pope helps "make the church maybe more true -- it's not just a name you can hear from time to time, it's really a person," she said.

And, added Rollin, World Youth Day is a time to seek comfort in numbers.

"When you are there and in the midst of it, you really are overwhelmed by all the young people like you who believe in Jesus Christ and have gone through all the trouble to be there."

For Mandi Anawak, who travelled south from Rankin Inlet with her husband, Darcy, the trouble has been in the long wait. "When I hear planes I'm really nervous, my stomach is scared," she said. "When I see a poster or something of the Pope, I start shaking. I want to see him."