IA PENDLE council worker has embarked on the working holiday of a lifetime - to a remote part of Canada.

Beth Logan, who is Pendle Council's Urban Regeneration and Community Initiatives Manager, will be working for the State Government of Nunavut as an adviser on social welfare problems and policies and spending three weeks in June touring the Inuit homeland.

Nunavut, the Inuit word for "our land" was created in 1999, covers two million square kilometres north and west of Hudson Bay in north east of Canada and is its first and only homeland.

Beth said: "The opportunity to go to Nunavut arose from both my own and my husband's previous experience in regeneration and social welfare matters.

"My husband, who is already out there, will be spending three months in Nunavut and I'll be joining him for three weeks."

"There is still a very traditional way of life in Nunavut with people living in small coastal communities with a population which may be no more than 50 people.

"These communities can be reached only by water or air; there are no roads or rail links so we'll be travelling round communities in a light aircraft or by water."

Beth, who set off for Canada last week, added: "Our aim is to identify social welfare problems facing the Nunavut Government and residents with the aim of producing workable solutions which is in balance with the traditional way of life.

"The isolated nature, subsistence living, infrastructure and climate of the state has contributed to problems including lack of employment opportunities and widespread alcoholism, despite it being a dry state. These trips are a two-way learning process for me and I'm really looking forward to working with these communities to see what innovative solutions they identify to their problems.

"I take these experiences and solutions away with me and they influence my work in other areas, including Pendle.

"Travelling round these small islands which make up the homeland will be exciting and I will also get to experience 24 hours of daylight because we will be so far north."

"There's only one really tourist thing I'm planning to do while I'm there and that's to fly up to the North Pole just to say I've been there - not many people can say that."