NUNAVUT - A thousand kilometres away in the heart of Mongolia, a group of young Nunavummiut were surprised to find they had much in common with their nomadic hosts.

Thirteen students from the Ottawa-based Nunavut Sivuniksavut (NS) program travelled to the Asian country last month, spending part of their travels with the Tsaatan reindeer herders.

"Our teacher David (Serkoak) was saying it was like a flashback for him, because it was like the Inuit lived a long time ago," said Kiah Hachey, an NS student from Baker Lake.

The group, accompanied by three instructors and one member of the NS board of directors, travelled to China and then Mongolia between April 27 and May 13.

The journey began in Beijing, where the group marvelled over construction projects for the upcoming Summer Olympics before boarding a train to their ultimate destination.

"Mongolia has the bluest skies. They were calling it the Land of Blue Skies, and now we know why, especially after coming from China, where it was all smoggy and you couldn't see the sun," said Lori Tagoona, a student from Rankin Inlet.

A whirlwind tour of the capital city of Ulaanbaatar included stops at the National History Museum and a chance to exchange their culture with local young people.

"We got to meet these teenagers in the main city and we realized there was a really big gap between people living in the city and living nomadically," Hachey added.

After long hours on the road in a caravan of Russian buses, the students also hiked to a Tsaatan camp.

"We spent one night in tents with wood stoves, and they served up mutton, which tasted just like caribou ribs," Tagoona said.

The young visitors and their Tsaatan hosts shared their respective styles of throatsinging, and the NS students demonstrated things like how to carry children in amautiiq.

The trip was a year-end highlight for the students, who graduated May 17.

"It was so amazing. And I've never been so proud to be a Canadian in my whole life, with simple things like showers and toilets and bottled apple juice," said Hachey with a laugh.

To pay for the journey, the class spent months fundraising the almost $80,000 required.

"I don't know how many performances we did. Sometimes we were performing two to three times a week, sometimes on the weekends, sometimes during weeknights, sometimes during the middle of the day," Hachey said.

Both young women said they will be returning for the second year of the NS program next fall.