INUVIK - Thousands of northern hemisphere dwellers flock to Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic every year around this time to soak in sunshine, swim with dolphins and have fresh fruity drinks served by handsome locals in well-starched uniforms.

Inuvik firefighters Candice Seddon, left, and Erica Wall are heading back to the Dominican Republic to build a house for a family with help from money raised in town. - Kira Curtis/NNSL photo

But for the second year in a row, two Inuvik firefighters are bypassing the vacation hub and slipping into the nearby slum of Agua Negra to labour away and build a house for one lucky family.

"It's true there is poverty in Inuvik but it's not anything like the poverty down there," Candice Seddon said from the Inuvik Fire Hall, "it's not even comparable."

Seddon and her co-worker Erica Wall ventured into the muggy Caribbean heat last year with Servant's Heart Ministries, a Canadian not-for-profit group. They fundraised supplies for a medical clinic as well as enough money to buy a contractor and supplies for a simple, safe home.

This year, the team of seven - two from Inuvik, two from Yellowknife and three from southern Canada - were able to rally the support of the Yellowknife Rotary Club, which has donated the full cost of the building supplies and contractor. The team will do all the labour.

"It's $5,000," Wall exclaimed. "You can't build a house for $5,000 around here. You can barely get a McPherson tent for $5,000 around here."

Last year's trip was so moving to the two women that even when this year's organizer had to pull out, the pair decided they were still going and purchased tickets.

"The houses that surrounded the area where we were building last year were basically being held together with rotten wood, a couple of old nails that they picked up off the ground, wire and what ever they could find," Seddon said. "There isn't anybody in Canada who lives in a house like that or who would live in a house like that."

She was overwhelmed at the incomparable level of poverty and said it was important not only to do work in your own community but also think on a more global level.

"They're all living in these rotten little shacks that flood up to their knees with fetid water," Wall added.

The hardest thing for two to see was, unlike in a first-world country, the people living in Aqua Negra have little to no way out.

They will live and die like that. There is no help from within the country. No shelters, no food banks, no jobs.

"Canada has social programs, you have income support, you have housing and you have back-ups to those," Seddon said, "they don't have that down there. "

The two firefighters, who work full-time jobs and volunteer as girl scout leaders, haven't found time to fundraise as much as last year, but have committed their own money to the cause - anything else is just gravy.

"I was amazed at the generosity of Inuvik last year, we raised over $13,000 last year," Seddon said, adding this year the two were able to pay for most of the travel costs themselves.

"This year our fundraising hasn't been that intensive because we just haven't had the time or the ability, and we did have the housing money already. We've only raised about $4,000 this year," Seddon said. The Rotary Club has paid for the home and the Town of Inuvik has donated points for Wall to get from here to Edmonton and back.

"Most of what we're raising now is going toward things like medical supplies for the clinic, doctors' and nurses' salaries, things like that," Seddon said.

The two will pack up and fly out March 25 and return home April 10. These two Inuvik ambassadors - still gladly accepting donations - are planning to take everything the town can give, along with their heart and hard work.

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