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PANNIQTUUQ/PANGNIRTUNG - Fourteen Pangnirtung youth have returned from a trip to the tropics with suntans, exotic memories and a greater appreciation for the unique nature of their home.

Accompanied by four chaperones, the Pangnirtung Youth Leadership Initiative spent 10 days in Costa Rica, home to one of the richest jungles in the world.

Joy Joanasie holds a target while Danny Ishulutak demonstrates his one-foot high kick during a performance for hotel guests and staff in Costa Rica. - photo courtesy of Kimberly Chapelle

"It was amazingly crazy," laughed 15-year-old Jenna Kilabuk. "It was very hot, very fun. It was so hot up there and we really know how cold it is up north now. Almost everyone got a sunburn."

During their time in the Central American country, the youth shared elements of Inuit culture with other travelling student groups and with the hotel staff who hosted them. The group had hoped to share their culture at Costa Rican schools but found out school was on holidays. At their hotel they sang traditional songs, performed drum dances and throat singing and demonstrated physical Inuit games such as muskox, leg wrestling, and airplane.

Danny Ishutulak, 16, was especially proud of his accomplishment in showing onlookers an Inuit sport.

"It was my first time trying to do the one-foot high kick when I hit a height higher than my height, so it was pretty cool," he said.

Joy Joanasie, 17, said the group struggled with the tropical heat, spending as much time as possible in the pool of their hotel or in the ocean while at the beach. Even so, many among the group sweated in their hoodies to expose less skin to the bizarre and plentiful bugs of the Costa Rican rainforest.

The young people's relationship with such jungle creepy-crawlies changed radically over the course of the trip, said co-ordinator Kim Chapelle.

"They were absolutely petrified at the beginning and by the end they're calling you over to check them out," she said.

Chapelle said the trip was a reward to the youth after six months of fundraising and volunteering. The group's members have helped out with the school's breakfast programs and movie nights, volunteered at Pangnirtung's youth centre and even cooked Christmas dinners for more than 200 people.

The group raised nearly $70,000 from the community for the trip with loonie-toonie sales and other activities almost every week.

It was the Pangnirtung Youth Initiative's third annual trip overseas. The group's young members have tended towards Latin American adventures rather than urban trips to Europe, which involve a lot of city tours and museums.

Fresh from the tropics, the youth had a bit of a shock stepping off the plane into -39 C weather in Iqaluit and then -20 C in Pangnirtung. Joanasie put it best: "It's freezing here!"