KINNGAIT/CAPE DORSET
Michael Soares was sitting in an outdoor Internet cafe on an island off of Hong Kong when he got the call that would send him to Nunavut.

Michael Soares is sad to leave Nunavut but said Nunavut will never leave him. He's proud of the team he helped put together at Peter Pitseolak School in Cape Dorset. - photo courtesy of Michael Soares

He was on a leave of absence from his teaching position in Cape Breton, N.S., and was offered the opportunity to help a sports coaching program in Kimmiruit, Iqaluit and Iglulik for three weeks.

"I had a tiny taste of the flavour of what Nunavut was all about," reminisced Soares about his trip to the territory in early 2009.

"As a coach and a physical educator, I became very excited about the raw athleticism of the kids of Nunavut."

He came back during that summer as a Nunavut wrestling coach for the 2009 Summer Games in Prince Edward Island.

Despite the Nunavummiut students having had far less wrestling experience than their counterparts during that competition, they showed tremendous improvement with every match, he said.

In 2010, Soares was offered the vice-principal job at Peter Pitseolak School in Cape Dorset. He left his position in Cape Breton to take on a full-time role in the North.

"Cape Dorset became my home away from home these last few years," he said. "I'm very attached to the people there now."

Eventually moving up to principal at the school, Soares said he was attracted to the community's well-known art scene and wanted to incorporate hands-on learning in the classroom.

"I wanted to make (the curriculum) responsive to the Cape Dorset art scene and the Nunavut art scene on a broader stage," he said.

He called the usual platitudes wonderful - that science and math are where the world's going and there should be an Inuit student on a space shuttle soon.

"But what our kids needed in Cape Dorset was hands-on learning that was reflective of their needs," Soares continued.

He pointed to a small-engine-repair instructor recently hired. That kind of program would interest students in the class, and from there they would develop basic math skills, he said.

"If the kids come for that kind of thing, they stay for the academics," he said.

Soares is also thankful that some of his higher-ups were able to live with a few paperwork mistakes.

"In spite of my personal foibles that I had, they kept me as principal of the school and were very encouraging," he said.

"We had a 'kids first' policy. Often some of the administrative stuff, the paperwork, took a backseat to the running of the school. My superintendent once said to me, 'You're never in the office when I call, but you know what, that's good. It means you're doing your job.'"

He is proud of the staff he is leaving behind, calling them wonderful and highly talented individuals.

"Education hasn't had a wonderful history in Nunavut," said Soares. "There's been a history of residential schools, abuse in schools ... we had a lot of work to do to give validity to schools and that's been ongoing for all educators in Nunavut. I was truly blessed to work with some wonderful colleagues in Nunavut and Cape Dorset."

He especially thanks school secretary Ooloosie Ashevak and counsellor Mukshawya Niviaqasi.

"Both were key people in any success I might have had in Cape Dorset," said Soares.

"Mukshawya was my Jimminy Cricket. She sat on my shoulder and when it was important, she whispered in my ear and tuned me up."

Up until a few weeks ago, Soares was planning retirement in Montreal. But his story came full circle, and he was offered a principal position at a school across the water from Hong Kong.

"It was an offer I couldn't refuse," he said. "It's another chapter that I'm just about to start."

He hopes to see some of his old students visit him if they get a chance to do a school trip to the area.

"It is with a lot of sadness that I left Nunavut," said Soares.

"You can take the boy out of Nunavut but you can't take Nunavut out of the boy."

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