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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Chef Kaven Paradis promised his students they would love cooking when his skills program began.

With all 12 budding chefs still enrolled and enthusiastic 10 weeks into the course, he seems to have achieved his goals.

David Harrison, 24, is one of 12 students enrolled in a camp cook and attendant program at the Yellowknife Aurora College campus, teaching people the basic skills in the kitchen. - Herb Mathisen/NNSL photo

The camp cook and attendant program takes place over 12 weeks at the Yellowknife Aurora College campus. It runs the gamut of food preparation, food safety, hygiene and also essential skills like resume writing, and job readiness courses.

Amid the chopping, washing and prepping in the kitchen, three students with varying levels of cooking experience in Nunavut were rolling up their sleeves, preparing culinary creations.

"I found out earlier this summer that I really enjoy cooking," said Alexander Illasiak. The 28-year-old Aklavik resident left Rankin Inlet two years ago, and said he was taking the course to try to get a job at one of the Northern mining camps.

The cooking trade always has a future, he said. "Everybody needs to eat."

Illasiak said he was a decent cook before beginning the course, but has learnt a lot.

"When I started, I thought I knew everything, but the basics of knife handling is something I never had," he said.

David Harrison, 24, said knife handling is his favourite part of the program. Raised in Gjoa Haven, Harrison found his skills with the knife have improved dramatically since the program began ten weeks ago.

"I got scars and scrapes from when I worked in Red Deer," he said, showing the nicks acquired when he was thrown into kitchen chaos down south with little experience.

Harrison was preparing potato wedges as part of a lunch to be served at the college's canteen.

Each Friday morning, the group decides a menu for the upcoming week and purchases groceries.

Barb Curtis, co-ordinator of the building trades program at the Yellowknife Aurora College campus, said the cooking students partner with business students to run the canteen and whatever profits are made go toward a non-profit organization.

Harrison said he's hoping to make a career out of cooking and hopes to one day get his Red Seal certification.

"It's going to take a long time to work for it, but that's what life is, right?"

There is one drawback to cooking though, he said.

"The chefs, we don't get to eat. We only get to taste," he said. "That's the crappy part."

Although, once in a while, he does drop by the canteen to devour he and his classmates' cooking.

"We got to eat it, instead of taste it. We have to buy it though," he laughed.

Yvonne Pilakapsi, 21, moved to Yellowknife from Hall Beach 16 years ago. She took the course to try something new.

"I didn't want to be behind a desk," she said.

Pilakapsi has found she has been doing a lot of chopping. In the kitchen, she was tasked with the potentially tear-inducing job of cutting onions.

"You just have to breathe through your mouth," she said, divulging how to not cry.

Paradis leads the troop in the fast-paced kitchen and was busy jumping from group to group, dish to dish, to offer advice or to tell students what to do next. He has been cooking so long he can't remember.

"The students are awesome," he said of his motivated and hungry students. "I want to make them love cooking."

By the looks of it, he has been successful so far.

"I love hearing from students, 'Oh my God, I couldn't sleep last night because I'm so excited to go to school," he said.