Inuvik (Mar 19/04) - A project aimed at documenting the lives of elders is underway in Inuvik.

Tapping into the enthusiasm of the youth and the wisdom of the elders, and using the latest video technology, an attempt is being made to capture tales of another time.

David Wall, British moviemaker and current volunteer computer instructor at the elementary school, came up with the idea after talking to some elders.

"The elders I spoke to said they'd enjoy visits from kids so they could share some stories," he said. "And I thought, why not document it so it can be enjoyed by other generations."

What Wall plans to do is record the interaction between young people and elders at various sessions and hopefully collect a series of stories and recollections.

Then, using drawings of the children's interpretations of the stories, as well as transcriptions of the tales themselves, transfer all the material onto CD-ROMs that will be archived at Centennial Library.

With the help of the Inuvik Girl Guides and the participation of elders Sarah Ann Garlund and Alice Snowshoe, the project's first session took place last week.

For about an hour, Guides asked Garlund and Snowshoe about what life was like when they were young.

Both Snowshoe and Garlund told the girls about a time when people made their own clothes, caught their own food and got around not by car or snowmobile, but by driving a team of dogs.

For Guide Karlie Robert, it was an insight into the past .

"I learned how they survived out in the woods, how they trapped and kept warm," she said.

And does she think she could've survived in that manner?

"I think so, but it wouldn't have been easy," Robert answered.

For the project's creator, the work has just begun. Wall says one goal of the endeavour is to get the children involved in actually putting the CD-ROMs together.

Eventually, Wall would like to see the project posted on the Internet so people from all over the world can access it.

After finishing the Inuvik project, he'd like to get something similar going in the other Delta communities and then do the same at his mother's reservation on Dominica, an island in the Caribbean.

"My mother is a Carib Indian and elders there share similar feelings as those here. Instead of going to visit the children to tell their stories, they want the children to come to them," he said. "So hopefully I can take this idea there, as well."