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How to snag a great job: ETP

“I love it when I get a report and it’s written by one of the students.”

JOHN THOMPSON

Click images to enlarge

Leesee Papatsie, an instructor with Nunavut Arctic College’s Environmental Technology Program, and Andrew Dunford, a former ETP student and recent graduate, drill holes with an ice auger at Crazy Lake during a field camp in April 2006. Data collected during the field camp could aid researchers interested in tracking the effects of global warming on Nunavut’s fresh-water lakes. (PHOTOS COURTESY OF NUNAVUT ARCTIC COLLEGE)

Past ETP students learn how to handle spills of oil and other hazardous chemicals, at a lake off Iqaluit’s Road to Nowhere, several years ago.

ETP second-year students examine organisms caught while sampling the ocean floor as part of the Marine Biology field camp at Peterhead Inlet this September.

A former ETP student dissects a bird during the program’s wildlife biology course, several years ago inside the program’s lab at Iqaluit’s old residence. The nose plugs are meant to help with the smell.

Like many Nunavummiut, they prefer working with their hands, and spending as much time outdoors as they can.

That’s why they’re enrolled in the second year of Nunavut Arctic College’s Environmental Technology Program, or “ETP.”

Last Friday, the two had just finished tearing apart the engines and drive gearboxes of two snowmobiles – then learning how to put them back together again – inside Iqaluit’s Sikitu snowmobile shop, as part of their small engine repair course.

“They purr like kittens now,” Guimond says of the repaired snowmobiles, which belong to the college, and are now used by ETP students during two annual eight-day land trips.

And for two and a half weeks in November, Guimond will ply the waves of Davis Strait aboard a vessel owned by the Greenland Fisheries Institute, as he joins officials from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans to do stock assessments – measuring the size and weight – of shrimp and turbot.

Graduates of the ETP program find themselves able to snag jobs in Nunavut’s most exciting emerging industries, says senior instructor Jason Carpenter, whether it’s in mining, offshore fishing, wildlife management, or helping researchers studying the effects of global warming.

“All the things that are big right now – we’re the only program that are creating environmental practitioners,” he says.

For example, to get a good job at a mine, you need to understand science, Carpenter says.

However, the Government of Nunavut’s mining education program seems focused on training Nunavummiut to operate heavy equipment, rather than teaching more advanced tasks, such as conducting environmental assessments at mine sites.

Those jobs require a science education.

But adult basic education programs in Nunavut’s communities often focus on math and English, and for lack of resources, don’t include science courses, says “Developing an adult education strategy,” a discussion paper drafted in November 2003 by the Department of Education.

Science doesn’t appear to be a government priority in Nunavut’s high schools, either, if a report written by Department of Education officials, following a meeting in Arviat in June 2005, is any indication.

Called “Becoming able,” the paper has much to say of the value of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, but it doesn’t make any reference to the value of a science education.

Given the need for skilled workers, the number of ETP applicants this year has been disappointing – only about 30, which is 20 less than the program usually receives. Carpenter says he’s concerned when he asks high school students if they have heard of the ETP program, and they answer with blank stares.

“I’d like people to hear ETP and know what I mean,” he says. “They should.”

Each year the program accepts 15 first-year students. Those selected almost always have a Grade 12 education, and show a keen interest in science and the environment.

As Carpenter puts it, “it doesn’t take long sitting in our classroom to tell they watch the Discovery channel a lot.”

Graduates from ETP are working today as conservation officers, lab technicians, fisheries officers, for the RCMP and Parks Canada, Environment Canada, as well as the territory’s alphabet soup of regulatory bodies, such as the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board and the Nunavut Impact Review Board.

Among past graduates is Andrew Keim, a water resources officer with Indian and Northern Affairs. “I wouldn’t have the career I have today, with 14 years experience, without ETP,” Keim says.

The program won’t make you qualified to be a polar bear biologist or geologist, but it can be used as a stepping stone towards completing the necessary bachelor of science that could lead to those jobs.

When officials from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans made a presentation to first-year students this September, two of the three employees were ETP graduates, Carpenter says. “That really hit it home for the students,” he says.

During the two eight-day land trips held during the program’s second year, students learn wilderness first aid, firearms safety, winter survival skills, search and rescue and boat safety.

Many students already feel comfortable out on the land – but Carpenter says the program will teach them not just how to set up camp, but how to manage one, following every safety precaution that a government agency or corporation would expect.

All this gives them unique skills to work in Nunavut, he says.

“I set up a latrine in -30 so that you don’t get a frostbitten butt. How many southern institutions will teach you that?” Carpenter asks.

And ETP students help out in real research, on big subjects like climate change.

To make accurate predictions, scientists need good information. ETP students serve as “the backs and hands” of these researchers, says Greg Goff, another ETP instructor.

For example, last year ETP students helped by boring holes in the surface of Crazy Lake, found about 12 kilometres outside Iqaluit, with an ice auger, so that Terry Dick, a researcher from the University of Manitoba who specializes in northern aquatic ecosystems, could use a fancy gadget to take readings of the water below, measuring temperature and oxygen levels.

That work will likely continue this year, Carpenter says. As more data is collected, the information could become useful in demonstrating the effects of global warming on Nunavut’s fresh-water lakes.

“These are cutting-edge researchers, and our students ... get to go out in the field with them,” Carpenter says.

Carpenter himself was an ETP graduate before he became an instructor for the program. He says the biggest thrill he has at work is when he recognizes the names of former students on environmental reports and conference papers.

“I love it when I get a report, and it’s written by one of the students.”

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