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The last time there was a liquor store in Iqaluit, local Inuit spoke openly of burning it down.

In only 15 years of business, the Frobisher Bay territorial liquor store was blamed for the deaths of 49 people, but it was public outrage spurred by the death a young boy in a drunken 1975 snowmobile crash that finally forced it to close.

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Now, after 38 years, Iqaluit is making the highly controversial decision to return beer and wine sales to the Nunavut capital. It’s not because the territory has any shortage of booze, but for pretty much the opposite reason.

As Chris D’Arcy, the territory’s deputy minister of finance told the National Post, opening up a convenient supply of beer is designed “to move people away from binge-drinking 40% spirits.”

The North remains the last outpost of Canadian prohibition; a place where liquor is often more tightly regulated than firearms and where the possession of homebrewing equipment can spark an RCMP raid.