IQALUIT - Inuksuk High School's Pirurvik alternative program has come a long way in four years.

It started as only a single class of two hours a day, but the focus on jewelry making has proven enormously popular with the student body and now boasts four full classes per year.

Elisha Ipeelee shows off a brass image of a loon diving for fish out of cut brass mounted on a granite base. - Gabriel Zarate/NNSL photo

One student described one of the more unusual projects he had made: a "spirit helper" made of bone, a rarity among the glittering silver and brass objects which decorate the classroom.

"It's a spirit in it that helps you when you're hunting or you have nothing to eat," said Mark Lucassie.

Lucassie based the idea off the traditional stories of his family.

Instructor Marek Lasocki's classroom in Inuksuk high school is small but dense. Worktables are crowded into every conceivable piece of spare floor space, with just enough room for a full class of 10 students to work under his supervision.

Scattered throughout are an array of tools for the range of different techniques a jeweller must use to make a piece: a press, guillotine, grinder, polisher, scribers and other instruments less easily identified.

Lasocki said many of his students had low attendance at the start of the year, as low as 30 per cent. But over time the students became involved in their projects and some students who used to show up rarely had attendance as high as 80 per cent by the end of the academic year.

The nature of the class has forced its students to learn skills that are useful in any part of life, such as the need to plan ahead. Lasocki said without a proper plan and design, a craftsman won't like the product he creates. Another big one is patience.

"You can't hurry up things in here because they don't come out," said Lasocki.

"Relax," added Paul Davidee.

Davidee is one of several students who sometimes check out the Piruvik classroom even though they are not taking the class. Along the walls are displays of past and present student creations, mostly made of silver, brass and/or copper, some with wood or stone as part of the setting. For raw materials Lasocki has taken whatever materials are donated. He has gone to plumbers and electricians for scrap copper and carves up the school's old trumpets for their brass when they are beyond repair.

The same goes for the equipment in the classroom. Some of the chairs were donated by the Nunavut Legislature and the City of Iqaluit because the detailed craft of jewelry needs an adjustable seat.

Work from the Piruvik program is displayed in the legislature building, and some students gave gifts of their work to the Governor General when she visited.

Though funding for the program from a variety of sources has come through every year so far, the uncertainty is still stressful for Lasocki, who worries about whether he can offer his class the following year before he gets word the money has come through.

"It would be fantastic if this program was permanent, like mathematics or geography," he said. "Art is very important for students to express themselves."