Jennifer Pritchett
Northern News Services

ARVIAT (Jun 10/98) - For one Arviat business owner, replacing the popular Nevada lotto ticket with a Nunavut version is no gamble.

Joe Manik of Qitik Inc. said the idea came to him four years ago when he started selling bingo and Nevada tickets, slot-machine-type lottery tickets that sells for 50 cents or $1 in most areas. One of three such suppliers for non-profit organizations in the NWT, Manik decided he would produce a ticket similar to the Nevada with a "Northern" theme that he would then wholesale to the rest of the territories, a first for the NWT.

And with division only 10 months away, he seized a marketing opportunity to sell lottery tickets that reflect and celebrate Northern culture.

"I designed these tickets for Nunavut," he said.

Manik hired a local artist, Paul Taleritok, to do the artwork for the tickets, and found a consultant, Dan Burgess of Inukpuk Technologies, to help with the computer and bookkeeping work.

Burgess said that he wants to give the people of Nunavut a lotto ticket that reflects their own culture.

"It's a celebration of the Inuit way of life," he said. "They will be in syllabics as well."

The first tickets to go on sale at the end of the summer will be commemorative Nunavut tickets in Qamutik and Qayaq designs, chosen to signify life on the land and on the water. These first designs will be geared towards the celebration of Nunavut at the time of division.

"We saw this as helping with the celebrations," Burgess added.

The business, which already employs five part-time people, will keep Northern-generated revenue in the North instead of funnelling profits south.

"We're taking over a business offered only by southern companies ... it's competition against those southern companies," said Burgess.

"We're going to be independently making our own tickets. It's rare getting something completely designed in the North."

The Nunavut tickets, to be printed in Alberta, are expected to be on the market by mid-August or early September.