Labrador's Inuit Get Self-Government

"For me, personally, I never thought I'd live to see this day, but here it is and here we are," he said. "Words can't explain it. The elation is overwhelming." Anderson, who has been a negotiator for more than 20 years and chief negotiator since 1989, was formerly a fisherman. "I worked like a dog as a fisherman," he said on the LIA website, "but it was nothing compared to land claims." The Inuit are now able to make their own laws relating to cultural affairs, education and health. The agreement has some unique features, including provisions for a commercial fishery and provisions for beneficiaries outside Nunatsiavut, the LIA said. Andersen will serve as clerk in the new government's assembly and as the person responsible for implementing a land-claim settlement that received royal assent in June. The agreement covers a settlement area of 72,520 square kilometres, of which the Inuit own 15,800 square kilometres outright – a holding about a quarter the size of Nova Scotia but only two per cent of Labrador's land mass. The Inuit, once called Eskimos by some, are not to be confused with Labrador's Innu people, once called Naskapi and Montagnais Indians. The Labrador Inuit are the latest in a series of aboriginal groups to win self-government, not always in the same form or with the same powers, starting in the 1970s with the Cree and Naskapi of James Bay and Northern Quebec. The most dramatic example is Nunavut, a new territory with its own premier and a predominantly Inuit populace, carved out of the Northwest Territories in 1999. http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/12/01/inuit-rule20051201.html [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on December 3, 2005]

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