Is Alcohol Prohibition Helping or Hurting Nunavut?
Officially founded in 1999, Nunavut is the youngest territory in Canada. It's only been two generations since Canada's stewardship of the land forced the Inuit people from their semi-nomadic way of life into a modern, sedentary one. But while the introduction of modern conveniences seem to have made life more comfortable, the history of Canada in the arctic is mired in tragedy, and the traumatic effects of residential schools and forced relocations are still being felt.Today, Nunavut is in a state of social crisis: Crime rates are four times the national average and the rates of suicide are more than ten times higher than the rest of Canada.If you ask people here what the driving force of the problem is, a lot of them will say: alcohol. Even though alcohol is completely illegal in some parts of the territory, it's been reported that 95 percent of police calls are alcohol-related.VICE visited the beautiful expanse of land that is Nunavut to meet some of the people on the frontlines of the issue and to find out if this self-imposed alcohol regulation is helping or hurting the Inuit people.