Yellowknife (Feb 20/04) - Four students escaped the frigid North by hopping on a plane headed southeast Sunday.

One half of a student exchange program, Claire Bourgeois and Luca Muratori say the cold sticks out as the biggest difference between their hometown of Toronto and Yellowknife.

For the other half of the educational equation and the other two on the Sunday's flight -- Range Lake North students Andrew Goodwin and Samantha Hicks -- a break from winter is always welcome.

Ride the rails

The Grade 8 students are on an informal exchange through their schools for four weeks. Bourgeois and Muratori were given the Northern tour by Goodwin and Hicks for the last two weeks.

In Toronto from Feb. 15-29, the Yellowknife students will be treated to rides on the subway, hockey games and a tour of downtown by their new friends.

"I like it up here. It's kind of different because the people are more relaxed," said Bourgeois during her last day at Range Lake North school.

The Greenwood College students hopped on snowmobiles and dogsleds during their visit, even catching the Northern lights.

Neither Yellowknife student has been to Toronto before. Hicks' mom is worried about her 13-year-old in the big city.

"The sun rises in the east -- that's how much I know about it," Goodwin joked during a class Valentine's Day party.

The school will definitely hold another exchange in the future, said Sandra Bowden, the principal of Range Lake North school.

"Education happens outside of the school as well as in it," she said.

"Travel is always educational."

The idea surfaced when a local teacher broached a possible exchange with his brother-in-law, a teacher at a Toronto private school.

The students will carry on the curriculum of their own school during their trip, bringing projects and homework as they switch cities.