It's Cold, But It's Ours

A plebiscite points toward a homeland for Canada's Eskimos by 1999

ABOUT 15,000 VOTERS IN CANADA'S SPARSELY SETtled Northwest Territories made it to the polls last week and narrowly approved a plan to split the vast region in two. Once a chain of legal steps is completed, the new 772,000-sq.-mi. territory, to be called Nunavut, will become a national home for the Eskimo -- or Inuit -- of the country's eastern Arctic. It will encompass a huge area of mainland and islands stretching from Manitoba almost to the North Pole that is thought to be rich in oil and minerals.

Though the plebiscite was not formally binding on the Canadian government, Ottawa...

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