AKLAVIK - A select group of Aklavik students will be zip-lining, boating and hiking in and around the nation's capital next week as part of a student exchange that will earn them a high school tourism course credit.

Aklavik elder Alice Huskey shows Ottawa student Matt Christie how to skin a muskrat. - photo courtesy of Wayne Van Sickle

Eleven students from Moose Kerr school are travelling to Ottawa from May 2 to 9 with 13 exchange buddies from Ottawa's Immaculata High School. Those students were in Aklavik last week learning about daily life in town.

"We took them to the Richardson Mountains, we took them to our school camp, we toured them around our town and had Dene and Northern Games," said Grade 11 student Prairie Dawn Edwards, delightedly listing off the students' hosting activities. "It was amazing - very fun."

The 16-year-old said she also enjoyed the exchange students' levels of enthusiasm when it came to learning about traditions such as hunting, trapping and drum dancing.

"We caught muskrats and rabbits and they were participating in cutting and skinning and all that," Edwards said.

For 16-year-old Ottawa student Hannah Fleming, the exchange was a "once in a lifetime" chance to experience the Western Arctic way of life.

"I really, really liked being on the toboggan at the back of the snowmobile because you're either on the way to some crazy adventure in the Arctic or you're on your way home being rewarded with some dry clothes and a hot cup of tea," she said. "It's kind of like a segue into something new."

To be considered for the exchange, Aklavik students had to submit a proposal to a panel of staff, including trip organizer and guidance counsellor Wayne Van Sickle, detailing why they wanted to participate and how they thought the experience would help them become better students and community members. They also had to maintain high attendance records at school.

"The motivation was to promote cultural understanding and also for our students to visit post-secondary institutions they may want to attend," said Van Sickle. "This is the first time of the students' and teachers' memory that this kind of exchange has been done."

On their way to Ottawa, the group will stay in a dormitory at Edmonton's Grant MacEwan University and tour the school so students can explore post-secondary options. Once in the capital, the students plan to balance their shopping and restaurant-dining time with a stop at Parliament, where they'll meet Western Arctic MP Dennis Bevington, a visit to the Museum of Civilization and a tour of Algonquin College. They'll also be staying with the families of their exchange buddies and learning what daily life is like for those students in Ottawa.

Millie Greenland, a 17-year-old Grade 11 student at Moose Kerr, said she couldn't wait to go zip-lining and she's also looking forward to checking out the Parliament buildings.

"I've never been that far before - to Ottawa," she said, adding it was fun to show off her hometown.

"(The best part was) showing them how to drum dance and all the handgames - our traditional lifestyle."