The Ayalik Expeditions program seeks to foster new levels of self-confidence in our youth. The photo above says it all: these boys have achieved new heights beyond their imagination. We firmly believe that challenging activity – physically, socially, emotionally challenging – most especially in the wilderness, serves to build self-esteem. Accordingly, we have sent youth to all of these programs. We continue in that vein, and are always looking out for new possibilities. For more specific information and photos, click on the logos below. In our very first year, just a few months after inception, the Ayalik Fund sent two youths to an Outward Bound program in the Rockies. Ian Kavanna and Shania Angohiatok were 16 at the time, in 2015, recipients of the Ayalik Fund’s first grants. They still speak, with pride, about their achievement that summer – they joined a group of other youth, and trekked into the high country near Banff, Alberta, carrying all the gear and food on their backs, learning to work together and to meet some personal challenges, as they broadened their horizons and developed new levels of self-confidence. Afterward, Ian wrote us a short note:

Since then, the Ayalik Expeditions program has sent many more youths on similar trips every year. In total, now, hundreds of youths from Nunavut have climbed mountains, canoed on barrenland rivers as well as in Algonquin, Temagami and Kipawa, sea-kayaked in Clayoquot Sound, sailed in a tall-ship, learned traditional skills, sometimes winter camping and sometimes swimming in warm summer lakes, explored potential careers and new frontiers, always making new friends and discovering new strengths within themselves.

The Ayalik Expeditions program now operates within the organizational structure of Northern Youth Abroad, which reduces the administrative burden for the Ayalik Fund itself, and enhances our outreach in the North. NYA provides administrative support and ensures CRA compliance for Ayalik’s charitable programming, while assisting in many other ways. This is a positive way of ensuring that the Ayalik Expeditions program will continue for many years, even decades, into the future. This does not change the role of the Ayalik Fund, as a foundation, and nor does it alter the mandate.

Furthermore, the philosophy underlying the Ayalik Fund is a reflection of Inuit cultural values, rooted in Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. We believe in the power of the land to nurture; in Inuktut, sila – often translated as the “outdoors” – is more deeply thought of as a life force and an individual’s inner connection to the environment.