Iqaluit (July 14/03) - Just up the hill towards the spot Joamie school once sat welcoming all those kids, there is an eerie silence, broken every now and then by a howling dog or creak of metal as the wind blows through it.

Nothing but twisted brown metal and ashes remain of the elementary school that burned down recently.

A jungle gym, and tire swings hang out in the school yard -- now just a yard without a school -- and are amazingly still intact.

But no children will be playing there for a while. No one is allowed near the charred remains of the school.

Dickey Joanas is one of the security guards making sure of that.

The hulking metal skeleton of the building makes the scene look like nothing but old bleachers in an abandoned stadium.

But on Monday there was still smoke coming from the wreckage.

The scene was still smouldering, and police and fire chief Cory Chegwyn did not want anyone but those on their investigative team anywhere near the scene. Joanas looked off quietly into the distance with the disfigured, blackened pieces of the school mirrored in his sunglasses.

"They are worried about evidence being destroyed," explained Joanas, who normally works at the Baffin Correctional Centre, but has been hired temporarily by the RCMP to work a seven hour shift here inside the yellow tape for now.

There will be guards at the site 24 hours until the scene is cleaned up and the cops and fire chief know what happened he said.

"They are worried about kids playing here," he added.

"They haven't confirmed it yet," he said when asked about how the fire started.

Rumours abound about youths playing beneath the structure and somehow setting fire to it.

Joanas has heard this. But he will not speculate.

He wonders if it is okay that he is even letting a reporter walk through and survey the damage with him.

But, he walks on, heading towards the RCMP vehicle to explain to officers he told the reporter she wasn't allowed in but she came in anyway seeking pictures.

He did his job. But the scene turns heads and makes people pull out their cameras. It is not everyday a school burns down.

And in the surprisingly bright Monday morning sun, Joanas continues to make his rounds through the chunks of ashes of school memories gone, books destroyed, trophy cases demolished, pictures melted away, things no one will recover, as investigators comb the area for clues.