Yellowknife (Dec 20/04) - Jayko Neeveecheak, 34, remembers that in the 1970s drinking problems were rampant in Taloyoak. Today the drinking isn't as wild as it used to be, he says.

Taloyoak is a restricted community. You can order liquor in by getting a permit. Your request for booze is reviewed by a committee before your order is made. During Christmas you can't order in at all.

• LIQUOR REGULATIONS
  A look at how each community deals with alcohol.

"This town isn't too bad. Social drinking is OK. But when it's the middle of winter and you can't go hunting, more people drink," Neeveecheak says. "More people are drinking now because the population is bigger."

In the 1970s a lot of heavy drinkers in Taloyoak started to quit, Neeveecheak said.

They had spent enough time falling into snowbanks and fighting. The Netsilik Inuit sensed something had to change.

"They feel better if they quit," is how Neeveecheak puts it.

Geographically, Taloyoak is in the middle of two dry communities where liquor is prohibited: Kugaaruk and Gjoa Haven.

But the liquor gets in to those communities, too. "We have seen people in snowbanks," says Const. Martin Jobin in Gjoa Haven. "We see drunks passing out on the street in the summer. But people call us. If somebody is intoxicated they call us, that's the end of it."

Bootlegging is bad in Gjoa Haven right now, says Jobin. "Yes, there is alcohol in Gjoa Haven, but we don't don't have huge sprees of violent crimes."

Kugaaruk is dry, but there are problems with bootleggers, too. A 40oz bottle of hard liquor goes for $500 on the street, a pint is worth $100.

You would think this would deter people from buying booze illegally, but it doesn't.

That is why the RCMP is actively fighting the booze problem there.

Officers say the new social worker in town, Barbara Stevens, is going to help a lot.

The RCMP has also increased their patrols at the airport. The police in Kugaaruk also organize community education sessions on booze, as well as talk to the kids at the schools.

The Rankin Inlet police say 80 to 90 per cent of people there don't ever get mixed up in crime.

"Five or seven per cent of our population does, so we're dealing with 120 people on a regular basis," said Sgt. Grant St. Germaine. "That's our general client list. Out of all those, 80 to 90 per cent have an alcohol problem."

Liquor first came on explorers' ships from Europe in the 1500s and with the whalers in the 1800s.

When the booze flowed, it made people feel happy. It made people dance.

But then came the dark side.

In the 1950s in Pond Inlet, a common drink for good times was anti-freeze. But the manufacturers changed the recipe and the people who drank it went blind or died.

Today, alcohol creates complicated social problems in many Nunavut communities.

In an interview last week, Annie Amitook, the mayor of Sanikiluaq, expressed real concern about alcohol.

Inuit have adapted to new ways of life quicker than any other race on earth, but alcohol, Amitook suggested, may just be what stops Nunavummiut in their tracks.

Paul Kaludjak, the president of NTI, remembers that even 25 years ago booze was completely uncontrolled in the North. "Any time there was booze people drank it to the finish," said Kaludjak. "Inuit still face the challenge of drinking. Not all, some. It's like a runaway train. You've got to jump on and slow it down."

Whale Cove voted overwhelmingly in favour of keeping things dry last week as residents asked to weigh in on a liquor plebiscite.

However, people in Baker Lake, a non-restricted community, voted for a liquor education committee for the first time in the community's history. This means once people get a permit to get liquor, that order must be reviewed by a seven-person committee before the order is made. "I hope it will make a difference," said Elizabeth Quinangnaq, municipal lands officer in Baker Lake.

About 450 people voted on Monday night, she said.

Seven members were elected for the alcohol education committee: Jean Pudnak, Freddie Oovayuk, Elijah Amarook, Barbara Bevridge, Lynda Lafontaine, Lucy Niego, Dody Qiyuk.

The group will hold monthly meetings starting after New Year's.

Quinangnaq said she doesn't drink, so the fact the community will now be screening people who want booze doesn't bother her.

But she said she certainly hopes the new elected committee will do a good job.