C Ihe Ladies c cu. V'VVAN - History and Classics, Department of

Notes to Page 23 245at the time. The fourth of ten children born to Chief Justice ofManitoba Sir Joseph and Marie-Ann (nee Henault) Dubuc,Lucien studied at theJesuit College of St Boniface and theUniversity of Manitoba, where he received his law degree in1900. Marrying Marguerite Richard, he then moved toEdmonton (Dubuc, "Genealogie"), where he played an activepart in the Francophone community, serving as secretary of theSeparate School Board from 1901 to I905 (E.j. Hart 33), as amember of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Association and the Societedu parler fran~ais (52), and as president of the Associationcanadienne-fran~ais de l'Alberta in the late I920s (107).Dubuc ranked among the most prominent French-speakinglawyers in Edmonton. He was called to the Alberta Bench inI920 (III) and became the chief justice of the Regional Courtof Northern Alberta in 1944. In May 1924, he became the firstjudge in Alberta's history to hear a case entirely in French(II2). In I937, Dubuc received an honorary Doctor of Lawsdegree from Laval University ("News").Dubuc's trip in I926 with the Englishwomen was not thefirst he made to hear a trial in the Arctic. In 1920, FranklinHugo Kitto had reported to the Department of the Interiorthat "the need for stipendiary magistrates being appointed wasimpressed on [him] at every post. An appeal from a decision ofa local Justice of the Peace is practically an impossibility now"("Report" 29). Likely in response to this situation, in I92IDubuc travelled to Fort Providence and Fort McPherson. Heheard many cases, and, for the first time, sentenced a man,Albert Lebeau, to death (Philip Godsell, Vanishing I83-90). Thetrial at Fort Providence, held on 29June, was the first trial byjury in the NWT (Fumoleau I72). In I923, Dubuc travelled toHerschel Island, Yukon to hear the case against two Inuit:Tatamagana (also transcribed as Tatamigina, Tatamageena,and Tatamerana) and Aligoomiak (also transcribed as AlikOmiak, Alikomaik, and Alekamiaq). They were accused ofkilling RCMP Corp W.A. Doak and Otto Binder, a whitetrader, in April I922 near Tree River (67"4I'OO" N,Ur"53' 00" W), east of Coppermine River in the central Arctic.(A photograph of the accused men is reproduced in the papersof Knud Rasmussen, the explorer from Greenland/Denmark[Intellectual facing 268].)Extending from 16 to 20 July, the trial ended with the juryfinding the men guilty of murder in the first degree and Dubucsentencing them to death. This verdict and sentence keptDubuc's name in the press for some time. James RichardLucas, the Anglican bishop of Mackenzie River 1913-26,attended the trial and denounced the verdict, citing suchimproprieties as having the two men testify against oneanother, rendering a verdict on evidence that would not havebeen sufficient to convict white men, bringing the woodneeded to build the gallows with the trial party in advance ofthe proceedings, and delaying the sentencing until just beforethe judge's departure from Herschel Island. Lucas' complaintsstirred a hot debate, especially in eastern Canada, where areprieve was sought on the grounds that the Inuit wereinsufficiently familiar with "the laws of civilization." In theend, it was left to the federal cabinet to review the sentence. Itwas confirmed and the men were executed at Herschel Island IFebruary 1924, the first Inuit executed for murder underCanadian law ("Eskimo Murder"; Philip Godsell, Arctic 234-39,255,263,295; Mason 245-49; Morrison I60-6I; FrankPeake, The Bishop I45).However, the trial brought to public awareness both animage of Inuit as other than smiling, lovable children and thereliance on a policy of poliCing them in the absence of anypolicy for governing them. So sensational did the English pressfind the story that one newspaper reported the executionsmore than a month before they took place ("EskimosExecuted"). Rasmussen told the world that he had been"informed that this execution had cost Canada something like$IOO,OOO; among other expensive items being the cost of theexecutioner, who had to be brought up and kept there all thewinter, as none of the Police themselves would have any handin this part of the work" (Across 280).Certainly, the observation made by Vyvyan in her field notefor nJune, but less forcefully in her book, is provocative. Evenmore telling is a remark made in her letter to her mother,dated 3June, when she was still at Waterways, about the trial atAklavik three weeks later: "they only hang Eskimos when theymurder white men, and this case was a fellow Eskimo."We reached Waterways in ~4 hoursTwo years later, in 1928, under the impressive name of theNorthern Alberta Railway Arctic Express, the train still took23 r/2 hours to complete the trip; the "two passenger cars wereboth so antiquated that by night they were lighted by coal-oillamps that hung precariously from the ceiling" (Fleming 282).Waterways was located three kilometres southeast of FortMcMurray, at the mouth of Hangingstone River. It, and not