The annual supply sea-lift is always a big deal in Clyde River, an isolated community of 830 mainly Inuit residents located high above the Arctic Circle.

But in a few weeks, it will arrive on the eastern shore of Baffin Island with cargo already promising to become the pride of Nunavut.

Inside the crowded vessel will be building supplies for a bold education experiment: a new state-of-the-art, multi-million-dollar Inuit cultural school called Piqqusilirivvik.

Since Nunavut was carved out of the Northwest Territories 10 years ago, its politicians and people have dreamed about building a place where Inuit from across the territory could gather to preserve and strengthen their culture, tradition and language, which differs from region to region.

Government officials say that since it will be so radically different from a conventional education institution, it shouldn't even be called a school.

Piqqusilirivvik, which has received $24-million from the federal government and $10-million from Nunavut, is deliberately not affiliated with the territory's education department. Students won't need to show grades to gain entry. Tuition and living expenses will be paid by the territory. Classrooms will be called “learning studios.”

“We are trying to avoid the word ‘school' because it brings all sorts of very traditional school images from our own experience. This is going to be quite different,” explained Hugh Lloyd, Piqqusilirivvik's project co-ordinator.

Mr. Lloyd, who works for the territory's department of culture, language, elders and youth, said cultural programs are run across Nunavut, but many elders have found them inadequate, particularly those provided by conventional schools, because they “run on timetables not forgiving of weather or hunting conditions.

“Elders found it very frustrating that when they would just get going on something, people would say ‘We've got to go back now,'” he said.

Piqqusilirivvik, which means “a place that has those things important to us,” will not set out primarily to right historical wrongs that many Inuit say they experienced after the federal government moved them off the land and into permanent settlements in the 1950s and 1960s.

The change was quick and traumatic for many families, and Nunavut has since battled social and economic problems, including rampant substance abuse, family violence and poverty. The territory, with a population of 31,400, has a constellation of 25 mainly Inuit communities. It has the highest suicide rate in Canada.

A 2008 territorial report about the new cultural school, which was partly inspired by Greenland's Knud Rasmussen Folk High School, states that while the facility will play a “vital role” in preserving Inuit culture, “it should not be viewed as a means of correcting past errors.

“However, it should help students to adjust to modern life stresses by renewing their self-confidence and sense of identity.”

The institution, which is expected to open in April 2011, plans to admit 26 students from across the territory. Successful applicants will be 18 or older and demonstrate they have community support.

Each program could run from four months to a year. The curriculum is still being decided, but it is expected students will be taught a number of traditional and land-based skills, which range from building an igloo to using modern and traditional hunting equipment, to forecasting the weather using the clouds, moon, stars and sun.

“The land is going to be the principle classroom,” Mr. Lloyd said. Students will be asked to take photographs while out on the land or working on projects, such as making sealskin boots, and contribute them to a digital library back at Piqqusilirivvik.

Elders around the territory are expected to become the core group of teachers in Clyde River, Igloolik and Baker Lake, where two satellite campuses are being set up. Most elders were born and raised in camps and are the last living link to that world.

“Teaching has been a big part of our lives, even though it wasn't formal education,” Attakalik Palluq, a 78-year-old Clyde River elder, said in Inuktitut through an interpreter.

Even though to promote healing isn't the school's primary goal, it will undoubtedly be a side effect for all involved, she added. “Healing comes when people are together and connecting and talking about their feelings.”

Raygilee Piungnituq, Ms. Palluq's 56-year-old daughter, hopes the cultural school teaches both traditional and modern Inuit knowledge, particularly since the Arctic is being transformed by climate change.

Peter Kulchyski, professor of native studies at the University of Manitoba, said it's important the new facility won't be modelled on conventional education institutions found south of the 60th parallel.

“Our schools teach us passive watching. We learn to live by the clock, learn to sit down and shut up,” he said. “Those are not skills that translate well in the Arctic environment.”

Mr. Kulchyski said in traditional Inuit culture, students learn best at their own pace and by doing. “There is no separation between the body and the mind.”

Inuit residents between the ages of 18 and 24 have the most to gain from this new school because they “are threatening to be a lost generation,” he added.

Mr. Kulchyski expects there will be a long lineup to get into the program because many people currently don't have the time or financial resources to get out on the land themselves.