Liquor store may be a good idea

Thanks to technology, I was able to review Nunatsiaq Online from Florida.

I always read the letters to the editor, as I feel it provides people with a great opportunity to voice and share their opinions.

Often, these letters are critical of some event or person or organization, and so on, and often they are used to convey thanks for a job well done or an interest in something of importance.

Brian Pearson’s letter, dated Aug. 16, 2010, “How to put bootleggers out of business” caught my eye. I lived and worked and played in Baffin Island beween 1992 and 1997, some of the most interesting years as I remember.

When I first moved there, Iqaluit’s population was 3,600 hardy souls. I still keep in touch with my boys Imo, Shane and Nirna up there, and they say I won’t recognize it when I come up this Christmas for some extreme camping.

It seems things change, yet stay the same and only get bigger as the population grows. Mr. Pearson has a valid point about liquor being hidden in grocery orders, and I find it lamentable that some people, rather than contribute positively to their community, sell liquor and drugs at highly inflated prices to others who would do better on the land, helping their families and children continue ancient traditions.

Perhaps he has a good idea with the store, which would allow responsible citizens to drink responsibly.

Perhaps some of the profits from this store should go to funding programs to help make the land and the wonders it holds more accessible to our youth in the North.

Once you learn something properly, it’s hard to forget it. I still remember how Paul Irngaut taught me to make an iglu, while other hunters taught me to dress a caribou and walk on one-inch-thick ice. These are some of the skills that could be passed on with this new funding source.

In my years up in Iqaluit, I never saw much arguing or fighting or drug and liquor problems while on the land,. And believe me, I spent more time in a tent or iglu than my office.

As Mr. Pearson writes, this may be an avenue to be researched more in depth. I hope it bears positive results.

Gordon Cruise McBride (Piluq)
Florida
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