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INUVIK - Sewing enthusiasts in Samuel Hearne have a lot to be happy about this semester.

The industrial shop class recently installed sewing machines.

Rick Bourgeois is the new shop teacher at Samuel Hearne. He started with the school in the fall of 2008 and is implementing a new set of sewing machines into his classes. - Dez Loreen/NNSL photo

Two of the machines arrived just before Christmas.

In early November, instructor Rick Bourgeois set up a sewing room in the corner of his classroom.

Inside the room is a shelf for stacking fabrics and four sewing machines.

"I needed a dry quiet area away from the rest of the shop," said Bourgeois.

One of the machines is heavy duty and can sew fabrics up to an inch thick.

"It'll be good for furs and other thick materials, like canvas," he said.

"We tried rabbit fur, but it didn't work."

He is still working with students to learn the craft.

"We're holding off on ordering a lot of material until we get used to the machines," he said.

A club for interested students is also taking place after school. Bourgeois is new to the school, coming to Inuvik from his home in Newfoundland.

"I'm settling in fine. There's no difference from my home in Newfoundland to here except where I come from we have some pretty high winds, sometimes up to 140 kilometres an hour."

As soon as he started, Bourgeois got the shop class on a new system, working in modules of three weeks at a time.

"The students each pick an activity, like metal fabrication, carpentry or arts and crafts, then work on it for three weeks before starting a new module," he said.

"They get a credit for each module completed."

He said each module has its own criteria and a project needs to be completed in that time.

Bourgeois said he is happy with the response the new system has gotten from the students in the shop class.

"It's been going very well, I'm amazed at the talent of these students," he said.

"They're very fast learners and they are eager."

Building their confidence also makes a difference in the work done by the students in his class.

"Once they have that confidence in their work, they do very well," said Bourgeois.

"The challenge is learning something new."

The industrial arts have interested Bourgeois.

"When I was 11 years old, my dad bought a fish trucking company that had its own shop, so I've been involved since then," he said.

Bourgeois said he went back to school in 2000 for technology education which armed him with the skills needed to teach shop.