Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

NNSL (Aug 31/98) - A popular Toronto magazine has spotlighted one of the NWT Development Corporation's Northern products.

Where Toronto, in its August edition, picked the corporation's Banks Island muskox hide business card holder as the souvenir of the month in Jacquelyn Waller-Vintar's notables, quotables section.

The magazine can be found in just about every hotel room in Toronto.

"Each month we pick a memento to be our souvenir of the month. For August it's a business card holder in the most incredibly soft leather imaginable," she writes.

The item, part of the development corporation's infinite series of muskox leather products, are produced and distributed through Arctic Canada Trading Company Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the corporation.

Corporation president Glenn Soloy said the focus on the card holder was "good news."

The item was made from muskox harvested last winter, when about 1,250 animals were taken in one of the most ambitious muskox harvests ever in the NWT.

As well as card holders, the series -- launched in the spring of this year -- also includes wallets, passport holders, portfolios and key fobs.

The magazine piece has "certainly brought people into the store," Arctic Trading regional retail manager Rosyln Ralston, reached at Arctic Trading's Queen's Quay store in Toronto, said.

"One person came in with the magazine in his hand asking about the card holder," she said.

Highlighting the muskox product has meant spinoff sales of Arctic Trading's other items, she said.

Another buyer was an American lawyer who came in asking about the store's leather products.

"He spent about $500 on various products, among the items, two leather card holders."