The Court of Better Fiction: Three Trials, Two Executions, and Arctic Sovereignty

Komar, Debra

ISBN 10: 145974408X / ISBN 13: 9781459744080

Published by Dundurn Press, 2019

About this Item

Faint scuffing on cover. Pen mark on bottom page edge.

Seller Inventory # 000676

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Court of Better Fiction: Three Trials, Two Executions, and Arctic Sovereignty
• Publisher: Dundurn Press
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 145974408X
• ISBN 13: 9781459744080
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • All
  • Canadiana

About this title

Synopsis

2020 Arthur Ellis Award, Best Nonfiction Crime Book ― Shortlisted
In its rush to establish dominion over the North, Canada executed two innocent Inuit.

In 1921, the RCMP arrested two Inuit males suspected of killing their uncle. While in custody, one of the accused allegedly killed a police officer and a Hudson's Bay Company trader.

The Canadian government hastily established an unprecedented court in the Arctic, but the trial quickly became a master class in judicial error. The verdicts were decided in Ottawa weeks before the court convened. Authorities were so certain of convictions, the executioner and gallows were sent north before the trial began. In order to win, the Crown broke many of its own laws.

The precedent established Canada’s legal relationship with the Inuit, who would spend the next seventy-seven years fighting to regain their autonomy and Indigenous rule of law.

About the Author

Debra Komar’s books have won numerous honours, including the Canadian Authors Award for History. A Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, she investigated genocides for the United Nations, testifying as an expert witness at The Hague and across North America.