Yellowknife (Mar 28/03) - The Mackenzie Delta is a long way from the Sahara Desert, but there's a British filmmaker in town who wanted to document the contrast of the two worlds.

Mark Young is a filmmaker/computer tech from England who is working at Sir Alexander Mackenzie elementary school as a Beaver, while he works on a documentary film about life in Inuvik. - Terry Halifax/NNSL photo

Mark Young of London came to Inuvik this winter to work on a film about the people and culture, while working at Sir Alexander Mackenzie school as a Beaver, or teacher's assistant.

Young made a documentary film about Queen Elizabeth's 50th anniversary, some short films as well as music videos for MTV.

When he's not working with kids and computers at SAMs school, Young is shooting a feature-length documentary film about life in Inuvik.

The idea of coming to the Arctic Circle occurred to him while working at the Equator.

"I was in the Sahara in Morocco, some time ago and I was thinking it would be good to see what life was like up here and see a real contrast," Young said.

The contrasts have been quite extreme, he says, beginning with his first days here.

"I didn't know hardly anything about Inuvik before I came here.

I just wanted to come into town sort of green and record what I saw." he said.

He wasn't expecting Inuvik to be as big as it is and he was also quite surprised in the change of temperature.

"On my first day here, it was minus 40, so that was a bit of a shock," Young said. "Also some families living near us had some caribou heads outside and you don't get that back home."

He says it has been interesting to see the contrast in traditional lifestyles and how aboriginal people have adapted to western civilization.

He records with a Canon XL-1, a digital video camera that produces professional quality audio/video at a minimal cost.

"It's good for low budget stuff like this, but the quality is good enough that if someone wants to buy it and put it on TV, the quality is good enough that they can do that," he said.

So far, he's recorded some drum dancing and sports at the Northern Games, but still has a long way to go.

"I'll probably need to record about 30 hours worth of footage and I've recorded about five hours so far, so I've got quite a lot to go," he said.

He's seeking some local stars for his production and encourages people to share their stories with him and his audience.

"If people see me around town, I'd be more than happy to sit down and talk with them and record their views on life here," he said.