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PANNIQTUUQ/PANGNIRTUNG - Pangnirtung played host to a longtime resident of Greenland earlier this month.

Anne-Mette Holm has lived in the village of Kulusuk in eastern Greenland for eight years, working as an artist and a teacher of craftsmanship skills to Greenlandic elementary school students. She made the long trip to Pangnirtung to see how things are done in another Inuit part of the world.

Anne-Mette Holm helps Daniel Nakashuk, left, and Amoosie Etooangat, right, construct miniature Greenlander-style sleds. - photo courtesy of Anne-Mette Holm

"I showed a lot of photos of the world I do with the children of Kulusuk," Holm said.

She showed examples of the her students' woodworking skills.

By comparison, Nunavummiut students' hands-on skills are not as advanced, according to Lucy Duvall-Evic, Grade 5 teacher at Pangnirtung's Alookie School.

"We don't let our students practise hands-on making enough," she said. "They don't seem to be as confident doing that, but with practice there's some confidence."

Holm said Greenlandic children spend four hours a week learning hand-crafting skills: carpentry, painting, drawing, basket-weaving, paper mache and textile work such as knitting and weaving.

On the other hand, Holm was impressed with Nunavut's preservation of the traditional Inuit skill of crafting with sealskin, which has largely disappeared from eastern Greenland.

"That is something I would like to stimulate when I go back," she said.

Duval-Evic said her students connected with the familiarity of the images Holm showed them.

Her woodworking deals "with arctic animals that students know of and can be familiar with," Duval-Evic said. "I like that, that they're dealing with what's around them. I think at times we emphasize too much what's covered in the curriculum instead of what's around us."

Duval-Evic's students are now drawing seals on felt, cutting them out and sewing them together to create wall hangings. She said her students are very excited about the new style of projects Holm introduced. They should be finished in the next week or two and Duval-Evic intends to display the finished results around the school.