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TUKTOYAKTUK - When Carson Cole, of Edmonton-based company Spring Fresh, set out to build a "little Canada" resort at the mouth of one of South Korea's most popular national parks, he asked himself this question: What is Canada without its aboriginal people?

From left, Tuktoyaktuk mayor Merven Gruben, guides and interpreters Ivy and Suzy, and buddy Cam Willier all stand in front of a national park in South Korea - close to the site of the destined "little Canada" resort. - photo courtesy of Merven Gruben

The vice-president of corporate affairs at Spring Fresh, a self-described "white boy from Alberta" and a man keen on authenticity, wasn't about to rely solely on his own scope of knowledge.

Enter Merven Gruben, mayor of Tuktoyaktuk. The mission became to inject Inuit culture into the Aboriginal Cultural Village at the proposed Banff-like resort.

The park, in Cheongsong, attracts more than 2.5 million visitors a year, but has no infrastructure built for tourism. Construction on the resort is set to start in full next year. In addition to the village, the tourism mecca will include restaurants, a shopping mall and a golf course - all Canadian-culture themed.

For the village, Gruben accompanied investors and Cole's Spring Fresh team, along with Chief Walter Janvier from Cold Lake First Nation, to Korea in late November/early December.

"I was the only Inuit. (the Koreans) have a hard time understanding what Inuit or Inuvialuit is," said Gruben.

"We had to play along and keep saying Eskimo so they'd understand. We had to teach them as well as them teaching us," said Gruben, adding by the end of the whole learning experience it was understood the term "Eskimo" was derogatory.

By the time of Gruben's trip, Spring Fresh already had all its financial ducks in a row. The company has an operating budget of $1.5 million and approximately US$320 million in investments in the project, including $43 million from the South Korean government.

What the company needed, however, was experience and input from the people who actually live in Canada's Arctic, said Gruben.

"They want to build iglus. They were even going as far as wanting to build these iglus in glass shelters or freezers," said Gruben.

Another idea was to have a dog sled team pull tourists on fake - or real - snow.

Cole said the aboriginal village will be controlled by the aboriginals involved in the project - while Gruben is strictly offering his input, Chief Janvier has signed a memorandum of understanding with the group.

"Each section of the aboriginal participants will take over a section of the aboriginal cultural village for a certain segment of time over the year," said Cole.

He said there will be a commercial and an education aspect to the village. So while there will be interpretive centres featuring the history of a certain group, there will also be iglus and tipis for rent and art for sale.

"In Korean culture living in ice and sleeping in an iglu - although these are old cultural things, we realize everything is Westernized now - the 1,000-year-old history of how people survived up North is extremely entertaining and interesting to the Korean culture," said Cole.

Not that Cole hasn't gleaned some new and interesting information himself.

"It's been really interesting for me ... to realize how little I know about the rich culture and heritage of the ground I walk on," he said.

"What this is really about is understanding each other's culture first, earning trust and showing money going back and forth ... It's opportunities to do business in Asia," said Cole.

"We're we're really trying to get all the aboriginal communities involved and have them build a bridge to Asia as a result," he added.

Already, Gruben has extended the invitation to a Cheongsong delegation to Tuk's jamboree in the Spring. Youth from the hamlet have been offered the opportunity to work at the village in South Korea once it is up and running.

Gruben expects it will be a win-win deal for tourism both in Cheongsong and Tuktoyaktuk.

"They'll see how we live and it'll boost tourism over here," said Gruben.