Hello! My name is Kaila Willison-Cole, and I am 17 years old. I recently did an exchange to Clyde River, Nunavut, and this was my experience. I went into this exchange not really knowing anyone personally. I knew four students that were my age, but the rest were younger than me by about 2 years. I recognized some faces because of my involvement with the school play or from past years of school.
While we were hosting in Ontario, the students from my school all got close with each other. It took us a few days to get familiar with each other and to build friendships. We stayed close while we were up in Nunavut as well; some of us were closer to the Nunavut students than others.
When we were in Ottawa, I had never been there before. I always just drove through it to get to Quebec. We did the Royal Canadian Mint, visited Parliament Hill, an art museum and made a quick stop in Quebec to check off another province for our friends of the north.
The highlight of my trip was experiencing 24-hour daylight for the very first time. I’ll always remember how when we all got there the first day, we forgot about the 24 hour daylight and were pretty surprised. I was also surprised to see that the kids had pedal bikes, as I wasn’t expecting kids to have them because of the freezing cold atmosphere.
I would definitely go back up to Nunavut or somewhere up north! I would probably just go back during the 24-hour daylight. It would be cool to go during 24-hour darkness even though it’s the coldest during those dark months. I really enjoyed my time and it’s nice to go somewhere where it’s different than home or anywhere else in the world.
This trip was definitely an adventure of a lifetime, and I made some friends I never thought I would have made. We may not be as close as we were while doing this exchange because we all live different lives and are not seeing each other every single day like we did during the exchange. In the end, this trip was definitely a trip to remember, and it was very interesting to see a completely different part of Canada.
By Kaila Willison-Cole
Hello, my name is Kaila Wilson-Cole. I am a 17 year old girl from Ontario, Canada. I live in Orillia where I attend Twin Lakes Secondary School as a grade 12 student. I live with my mom. I work in a grocery store in the bakery department.
