Chesterfield Inlet (Jan 31/05) - Members of the Chesterfield Inlet Tae kwon do Club recently had a special visitor take part in one of their classes.

Edmonton-based lawyer Steven Cooper spent more than two decades in the North between Nunavut and the NWT. Still active in the North, Cooper read about the tae kwon do club in the Kivalliq News while on a regional flight.

Edmonton lawyer Steven Cooper travelled to Chesterfield Inlet to take part in a tae kwon do class taught by RCMP Const. Allan Nickerson, right. - photo courtesy of Allan Nickerson

Impressed by what he read, he arranged to travel to Chester during his next trip to the region to check it out.

"It's really quite incredible to see what (RCMP Const. Allan Nickerson) has done with the club in Chester," says Cooper.

"As yellow belts, the members of the Chester club would be equal, if not superior, to the yellow belts who attend my club in Edmonton."

Cooper didn't just attend a tae kwon do class while visiting Chester.

At the invitation of a staff member, Cooper spent 90 minutes speaking with senior students at Victor Sammurtok school on a variety of topics, including the Akitsiraq Law School in Iqaluit.

"I talked to the students about how important their generation is, as the first generation of graduates since the formation of Nunavut.

"It is so important to the future of Nunavut for this generation to get the education necessary to be able to take over positions traditionally dominated by people from the south.

"That's not to take anything away from the contributions made by those people, but, basically, they were filling a gap.

"Hopefully, the future will see mostly Inuit holding many of those positions."

Knows the North

Cooper says the Chester students were receptive to his talk and seemed to like the fact he knows the North and spoke Inuktitut when he was a youth growing up in Coral Harbour.

"They appreciated the fact I also understand the realities of a cross-culture because I was submersed in their culture when I was the minority in Coral in the 1970s.

"At that time, my sister and I were the only white faces attending the school there."