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.

• The story of how the Canadian government held a kangaroo court that convicted and executed two innocent men, in order to assert their authority over the Canadian North
• Draws on original sources long kept secret in restricted national archives to reveal a damning picture of government meddling in a murder trial
• Correspondence between officials reveals they had decided the verdict ? and sent an executioner and gallows ? before the trial even began
• Author is a fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences who investigated human rights violations for the UN, and is a frequent expert witness in court cases