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Cruise ship passengers, ferried to shore by Zodiac, head to Sermilik Glacier for a visit to Sirmilik National Park near Pond Inlet. For a second year, Parks Canada is offering free training for community residents to become tour guides for cruise passengers. - photo courtesy of Parks Canada/Israel Mablick

NUNAVUT - Last year, Ooleepeeka Arnaqaq was one of the first participants in Parks Canada's interpreter training pilot program, offered in the communities of Pangnirtung, Pond Inlet and Arctic Bay.

As the manager of Pangnirtung's Angmarlik Visitors Centre, the opportunity for free training and the potential for more employment in her field were hard to pass up.

This year, Parks Canada is looking to expand the program into the other three Baffin communities associated with national parks. Sessions in Qikiqtarjuaq were scheduled to begin Aug. 14.

The two- and three-day workshops instruct participants on how to provide tours of the parks and the local area to cruise ship passengers visiting the community. As a graduate of the program, Arnaqaq's name is now on an interpreter list at the visitor information centre so cruise ship companies and any other perspective clients know who to contact if they are looking for a tour guide.

"I took the training because I'm in the tourism business and because Parks Canada was offering it," said Arnaqaq. "It was more just (learning how) to be an attendant on the cruise ship."

According to Pauline Scott, communications co-ordinator for Nunavut's national parks, five or six participants from the first few programs were hired immediately by cruise ships to provide tours for their passengers.

Whereas many licensed tour guides facilitate multi-day trips with visitors through the parks, the workshop participants are better suited to the type of experiences the cruise passengers are looking for, she said.

"We saw that there was a real need for some local people who are more likely to offer some interpretation into the community," said Scott.

In the workshop "we talk about what we expect if they're going into a national park, how to put together a tour, what visitors expect, and how to do a presentation," she said.