IQALUIT - A new Inuksuk High School graduate is putting the skills learned in his welding classes to use by making items for his family to use on the land.

Virgil Williams has built several qamutiik hitches for his family's snow machines, essential for some of the long trips his family likes to take.

A more ambitious project he has planned for this summer: building an entire trailer for his father's boat.

"It's not that hard," said Williams. "You make the pattern first, then you just build."

He has also built anchors for the boat and an ice chisel for fishing.

This fall the new RCMP building in Iqaluit will unveil a collective class project Williams took part in: an inuksuk which will be permanently displayed in front of the territory's police headquarters.

"I'm proud of all my work," Williams said. "It's something I'll be using the rest of my life."

As a long-term project, Williams is considering building his own boat. That would involve having pre-cut pieces brought up by sealift. He would then assemble and weld them together himself.

"I like metals. They last," he said.

Williams took two semesters of welding lessons on the advice of a friend who said it was good. Before that, Williams had spent two semesters learning woodworking, which appealed to his hands-on nature.

Having recently graduated from high school, Williams is working at Canadrill, where he has had a chance to weld I-beams onto foundation piles.

After a year, he is planning to apply to Northern Alberta Institute of Technology for a welding apprenticeship, hoping to start in the fall of 2010.