KANGIQTUGAAPIK/CLYDE RIVER
Tyson Palluq reflects on the dark December afternoon he and his snowmobile fell through the ice while hunting alone near Clyde River, leaving him drenched and freezing.

Quluaq School's soon-to-be graduates Tyson Palluq, left, Katelyn Hainnu, Maybelle Enuaraq, Leah Palituq and Nora Aipellee, with vice-principal Rebecca Hainnu, worked all day at the recent hamlet office opening, cooking and serving country food for the feast, and earned $1,000 toward a trip to Europe. - photo courtesy of Tyson Palluq

"Nothing to do but wait and think. I was going to die with regrets," Palluq recalls.

His machine was too heavy for the thin ice, and both went under.

"I was almost fully submerged," he said. "I was up to my neck in the freezing cold water and pulled myself up to the qamutik. I just wrapped myself with tarp. I started waiting. I couldn't reach my VHF radio in time because it was in the Ski-Doo, plus I tried (moving) on the ice, but I couldn't. I was stuck there on the wooden sled."

Alone with his thoughts, eventually the cold overcame him and he drifted to sleep.

"I had a lot of time to think about life, and the stuff I didn't do," he said. "Waited a long time, sleeping."

Miraculously, he was found and returned to the community. Nine hours had passed since the start of the ordeal.

"I woke up to the sounds of roaring Ski-Doos," he recalls. "I noticed that help came, took the tarp off, and heard lots of people yell, 'He's alive!'"

From that day, he decided to pursue opportunities to live life to the fullest. And this spring, he's hoping to be able to leave Nunavut for the first time. The Grade 12 Quluaq School student and the rest of his graduating class are planning a class trip to Paris, France.

"I want to go on that trip because I will be expanding my horizons on how big the world is instead of being in this small community in Nunavut," he said. "I'm feeling really excited and anxious, in a good way, about it. It's going to be a really huge experience for me."

The five students - Palluq, Katelyn Hainnu, Maybelle Enuaraq, Nora Aipellee, and Leah Palituq - chose Paris, and student support teacher Heather McIsaac found a tour that includes a visit to the Second World War beaches of Normandy, as well as the fortified city of Saint-Malo, and London, England.

"The biggest thing I hear them talking about is the Eiffel Tower and wanting to see it in real life," McIsaac said. "The more we learn about the other places we're going to visit, the more they're realizing this is going to be an educational trip. The Juno Beach landings, they're starting to Google that and learn about it because they're going to be visiting that site in Normandy."

But the group needs help. For the five students and two chaperones (McIsaac and colleague Ashley Howie), the cost will be about $30,000.

Money is tight in the hamlet, with about half of its 1,000 residents on social assistance.

Students have to compete with adults for part-time jobs, and even if the youth had jobs, the daytime hours and allure of pay are disincentives to stay in school, McIsaac said. She hates the thought of asking others to pay for a school trip, but says it's the only way this will happen.

"It's pretty expensive," Palluq said. "That's something I don't really have -- money. I'm not really financially strong, so that's why I've kept most of my life in this small community.

"We're committed to this dream. I know it's going to be hard, but if we make it through, it will really be worth it."

It's the first time, as far as McIsaac knows, the school has organized a graduation trip outside of Canada. Even sports trips are rare, with school teams training and fundraising to attend a single weekend tournament in Iqaluit each year.

Another obstacle facing these graduates is getting a passport, a bureaucratic process in a hamlet without the facilities to even acquire passport photos.

Hamlet chief administrative officer John Ivey is arranging to bring such equipment into town to reduce this barrier.

"There are so many things to overcome, let alone the financial side of everything," McIsaac said.

But the payoff is high.

"It started out as a trip, and now it's grown into more than that. If we can motivate one student to stay in school a little bit longer, our reach is farther than just these five kids."

The students are fundraising locally through raffles, bake sales, cake walks, 50-50 draws, hockey pools, and a hamlet donation for work the students did at the recent hamlet office opening.

But the local pot is expected to run dry, and the group is reaching out through a crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe.

They barely met their first deadline last week to raise $8,000 for the tour deposit, and need to raise the rest of the $20,000 tour cost by April 15. Then they have to find another $10,000 to get to Ottawa.

They leave Ottawa May 30 and return June 8. Their graduation is June 12.

"The kids are doing what they can," McIsaac said. "We're just hitting a wall. But I don't think they should suffer for not having as many opportunities as maybe a larger or more connected community would have."