KUGAARUK/PELLY BAY - Donna Rodnunsky completed Grade 12 in Kugaaruk when she was just 13.

Now, at 16, Rodnunsky, is set to graduate with a bachelor of arts from U.S-based Charter Oak State College, where she completed a distance degree.

From there, she is getting ready to start on her master's degree in education, and will have earned her teaching certificate by March.

"I want people to know that you can get an education no matter where you are," she said.

"I am part of the third generation of dedicated educators who have had a life mission of helping others."

Rodnunsky's father is currently a principal of the international school in Haiphong, Vietnam. Her mother is a teacher at the school and Rodnunsky and her younger brother, who is 14 and starting online university courses this year, have spent the past two years there with them.

"Our family wanted a bit of an overseas adventure, so we moved to Haiphong," said Rodnunsky.

But the North is home and she plans to return once she has completed her master's to teach in Nunavut, along with the rest of her family.

"I have been in the North since I was a small girl so it is home. It is a package of the climate, the geography, the people and the way of life," she said.

Rodnunsky started her education in 1998 at the Redstone Indian reserve in B.C., where her dad was principal at the school. After three years, the family decided to move to Nunavut and chose to settle in Whale Cove.

They stayed there for three years, while both her parents worked at the school, her mother as a teacher and her dad as a principal. After that, it was on to Kugaaruk, where again, her dad was hired as a principal and her mother taught Grade 2.

"Teaching has been described as being part of the helping professions. In my family, we live this," said Rodnunsky.

She added both her parents inspire her, but there were also two teachers in particular she looked up to while in school at Kugaaruk: Ed Lehman and Heather Campbell.

"They are very dedicated teachers," she said.

Rodnunsky isn't how sure how long she and her family will teach in Nunavut after she gets her degree but she is eager to come back.

"(There) we enjoyed the warmth and friendliness of the people of Nunavut and the extreme chill of the land is something I miss after living in Asia," she said.

"We like to think that we can help in the North and make a positive difference for our students."

Nunavut News/North caught up with the teacher-in-training while she was in Manila, just before she jetted off to Hong Kong and then Vancouver. The family plans to spend one more year in Haiphong when school resumes.

While there, Rodnunsky will be "student teaching" a secondary English class, as well as a primary class.