Coppermine (32 page)

C.C. McCaul interrupted. “I am sorry, but surely my learned colleague realizes the witness cannot swear to the testimony of someone who is not in the courtroom. It is nothing but hearsay, as my colleague challenged me on the statements of Mr. Koeha during Inspector Creed’s testimony He can’t have it both ways. Mr. Koeha could have been telling the Inspector a complete fantasy story. If you wish to offer this evidence, you’ll have to produce the witness and swear him in.”

“But your Lordship, this evidence pertains to the physical and mental state of the priests, to events leading up to the killings and afterwards that clearly help explain—”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wallbridge. I agree with Mr. McCaul. With all due respect to the accuracy of Inspector Creed’s notes, Koeha’s statements are hearsay and not admissible without Koeha.”

Wallbridge was visibly deflated. “No further questions, your Lordship, but I do wish to retain the right for future cross-examination of this witness.”

“Very well, Mr. Wallbridge.”

Wallbridge sat down. He looked at Angituk and shook his head.

Sixteen

The Crown’s next witness, Father Duchaussois, a short and heavy-set man with large brown eyes, had been a college roommate of Father Rouvière. He was having difficulty controlling his brimming emotions. He identified Father Rouvière from a photograph taken by Father Ducot in Fort Norman just before Rouvière went up the Great Bear River for the first time. McCaul asked Father Duchaussois to translate from Father Rouvière’s writings. He began reading from an old and faded letter to Father Ducot, one of the ones Creed had brought back. Creed remembered it was written just as the priest began his first trip north. Duchaussois translated the letter’s conclusion:

So far the Good God has kept me healthy and I pray each day to preserve me so I will be able to complete this difficult mission which has been entrusted to me, to teach these people of the one true God. No one knows how many there are or what sort of people they are. There may be some difficult ones—some “tough nuts,” up there, but I trust they are too good-hearted to put up much of a fight against grace. I rely upon your prayers.

C.C. McCaul approached the evidence table and picked up the mutilated and weathered diary that Creed had found beside the sled. He placed it in Father Duchaussois’s hesitant hands. The battered little journal, an artifact of and witness to the final massacre, held an aura not lost on anyone in the courtroom. McCaul asked the priest to read from the first marked entry. Father Duchaussois took a moment to gather himself before translating the excerpt, dated four years earlier:

October 8, 1913. We have started on our way north to the mouth with an Eskimo guide, Kormik, and his people. We have started very late in the season. Hornby was to take us in June, but he disappeared. So now we travel with Kormik, one of the last Eskimos to return north. Though this summer we have met with many of the Copper Eskimos, not knowing their difficult language has been a source of much frustration. How can we explain Jesus’ parables of the farmer when these people have never planted seed or taken a harvest? How can we explain “breaking bread” and giving Communion when the people have never tasted bread? Even explaining the Crucifixion in a land with no trees. It is so difficult. We feel we have failed to make the Eskimo understand anything of Christianity. And Father Le Roux’s impatience with these people doesn’t help us. He has already made an enemy of our guide, Kormik.

McCaul gently encouraged the priest to turn to the next marked place, and he began again:

Tomorrow we arrive at the mouth of the Coppermine, the centre of the Copper Eskimos’ hunting grounds—and the chance that I have been waiting for, for three years. This is where I dreamed of building a church, welcoming a congregation, “sending a few specimens to paradise,” as the Bishop had challenged. We have made it here. But not without cost. We are both ill and severely malnourished. The language has almost defeated us. Something as simple as “Be good and you’ll go to heaven” is impossible to translate. The only word we can determine for “good” means “an effective hunter.” But “morally good”? We have no idea. And Father Le Roux has been little help. He is not the linguist I was led to believe, among other things. But the Father is aware of his own quick temper and is trying to subdue it. Soon we will make our way south again—such a long trip—back to the cabin. The snow is heavy. We don’t have much food. We are tired. Mother Mary grant that I survive to further your work. The priest took a deep breath and steadied his voice.

“And now the short, final entry in the journal, Father, the last thing Father Rouvière would write,” McCaul gently directed, and the priest bowed his head to the text:

We are at the mouth of the Coppermine. We have become disillusioned by the Eskimos here. Many families have already left. We are threatened with starvation. Also …
nous ne savons que faire.

At this point Father Duchaussois broke down and could not manage a translation of the final line. Creed looked at the jury and found sympathetic faces.

McCaul eyed the clerk in expectation. “The last line translates: ‘Also, we don’t know what to do.’” McCaul’s voice was hushed and empathetic. “Thank you, Father.
Je connais qu’il est très difficile pour vous.
You are free to go.”

THE EMOTION OF THAT FINAL LINE
in Rouvière’s journal resonated with Creed. “We don’t know what to do.” After studying the murder site, determining the events that led to his death, and hearing Rouvière’s voice in the lines of his journal, Creed was perhaps the only person in the courtroom who could truly know what Father Jean-Baptiste Rouvière had experienced.

The two priests had been in retreat, and Rouvière’s thoughts, Creed was sure, would have turned to the man who walked in front of him.

Creed knew that Rouvière had had such high expectations for Father Le Roux: a young companion and brother in faith to share the joys and disappointments of his important ministry. A philosopher to encourage, stimulate, and keep it all in perspective during the three months of constant, oppressive night that approached. A young, fit shoulder to share the crushing physical burden of travel and survival in the High Arctic. A linguist to help unlock the mysteries of the Copper dialect. Rouvière had tried to give him time to adapt and settle in, he made excuses and blamed himself, he had sent encouraging letters to the Bishop about Le Roux’s attempts to curb his temper when working amongst the people, but in all honesty, Father Le Roux was an arrogant, insolent, domineering racist.

Father Le Roux had been a toxic influence from the beginning. He had driven away the guide Hornby. He had complained about the lack of good food and wine and creature comforts, of the weather, of the tedious landscape, of the smell of the people and the small numbers of souls to save. He had carried a stick and actually used it on a few of them when he grew impatient—an outrage! Though fluent in Latin, Greek, Spanish, and Mandarin, Le Roux had declared the Copper language indecipherable. Creed wondered if, and surely Father Rouvière suspected that, Le Roux had been sent to this posting as a penalty or at least a lesson in humility. In learning this lesson, Rouvière’s colleague had failed completely.

From what Koeha had told Creed, one of their most fundamental disagreements had to do with tolerance for the pagan beliefs. Father Rouvière had been convinced he could introduce the Christian belief structure slowly into the pagan one. These people already understood the importance of taboos in bringing prosperity and good health; concepts of sin and salvation would fit in nicely. Slowly the truth of the Christ would take over and the pagan beliefs would die. Death was to the Eskimo nothing but a gloomy end, but the priests could give them the gift of the Kingdom of Heaven after death! Father Le Roux, on the other hand, according to Koeha, was set to immediately forbid the Eskimos’ pagan beliefs—a belief system so closely intertwined with almost every daily act and decision in an Eskimo’s life—as sinful nonsense, even “devil worship”! He had knocked down the
inukshuks,
believing them idols, thrown handfuls of the amulets and dried animal parts he had taken from the people into the fire, and angrily put his hands over their mouths if Eskimos tried to sing spirit songs.

Creed believed Rouvière, on that final day, would have told himself it was not hopeless. He would winter at Imaerink, resupply from Fort Norman, and return alone here in the spring to the Coppermine to pick up the pieces of his alienated congregation. He would beat those Anglicans coming in by ship from the Mackenzie delta to poach in his land.

WITH THE READINGS
of Rouvière’s letters and journal, McCaul had finished the presentation of the case for the Crown. It was Wallbridge’s turn to bring out the only witnesses for the defence: Sinnisiak and Uluksuk.

Sinnisiak came to the stand first, sweating and terrified. He looked around at the alien faces staring at him and was on the verge of panic. Because Sinnisiak was not a Christian, the clerk dispensed with the bible and spoke the words that Justice Harvey, McCaul, and Wallbridge had agreed upon for Eskimo witnesses: “Whatever you speak now, you speak straight; do not speak with two tongues. Do you so promise?”

At the aggressive tone of the clerk, Sinnisiak looked desperately toward Creed, on the verge of losing control. Creed wondered what he could do to somehow put him at ease. He needed something to ground him, something familiar—and the idea came to him. Creed croaked like a raven. He started with a great squawk and descended into a muttering monologue like those they had heard on spring mornings on the Great Bear.

The Justice glared at Creed. “Inspector! Have you lost your mind?”

But Sinnisiak’s stricken face had relaxed. The hunter laughed out loud. “That’s good!” Sinnisiak told the judge, speaking in Inuinnaqtun. “Creed does that really well!” And the tension was broken.

Again Justice Harvey summoned his patience, gave a cautionary glance at Creed, and addressed his remarks to Wallbridge. “Let us proceed.”

The clerk repeated the instructions, “… do not speak with two tongues. Do you so promise?” and Sinnisiak thought of ravens and relaxed.

“Yes,” he said in English.

Wallbridge turned to the interpreter, Ilavinik. “I want you to tell Sinnisiak he has to speak to the big hunter and thinker:
Ishumatok.
Tell him I want him not to be afraid and to say everything. I don’t want him to be afraid because all these people are here. Just talk as if he is talking to me alone.”

When Ilavinik gave this message to Sinnisiak, the young hunter thought a moment and nodded. “I am not afraid.”

Sinnisiak took his place in the witness box. Creed nodded encouragingly to him. It would be all right.

“Mr. Sinnisiak, can you tell us your age? How many summers old are you?”

Sinnisiak thought hard about this and began to count on his fingers. “I’m not sure. I think I am maybe … eight.”

The courtroom filled with laughter when this was translated and people exchanged amused glances. The sound of the gavel brought a speedy silence.

“You are eight years old?”

Sinnisiak surveyed the audience suspiciously. “Maybe ten. I am not sure.”

Wallbridge was pleased with his response. He showed Sinnisiak a photograph of Father Rouvière at Fort Norman and he identified it.

“That is Kuleavik.”

“Let the record show he has identified Father Rouvière. Please tell us what happened at the mouth of the Coppermine.”

Sinnisiak spoke slowly and clearly, allowing Ilavinik to translate, but the old man did his job very laboriously and deliberately Everyone in the courtroom realized this testimony was going to take ages.

“I was at the mouth of the Coppermine River with Uluksuk. We were fishing there, but the fishing was poor. Our tent was near the camp of Koeha, where the two white men were staying.”

“The two white men: Kuleavik and Ilogoak?”

“Yes. We heard they were going back south up the river. Uluksuk and I were planning to go up the river to fish at the falls and to meet my cousin who was coming down, but we didn’t want to travel with the white men, so we waited.”

E.K. Mainprize checked his watch. The word-by-word translation dragged on in a numbing monotone.

“Were you afraid of the priests?” This question took a full minute to hear and translate.

“Yes. They were the first white men we had ever seen.”

“What was your impression of the white men?”

“They were strange. Big and pale, with the features of their faces gathered around sharp noses like a marten or weasel, or demons the shamans told stories about. So we waited two days at the mouth.”

Suddenly, Ilavinik spoke angrily in Inuinnaqtun to Sinnisiak. The old interpreter appeared to be accusing Sinnisiak, who tried to defend himself, arguing with him. The young hunter looked to Creed for help. Angituk turned angrily to Wallbridge and explained: “He’s telling Sinnisiak to confess! He accuses them of going after the priests to steal their guns. That they planned to murder them all along!”

Wallbridge was on his feet. “Your Lordship, my interpreter Angituk McAndrew informs me that apparently this interpreter is putting Sinnisiak through the third degree, accusing him of lying and trying to get him to give an answer which the Eskimo clearly does not want to give.”

Ilavinik defended himself. “But it is true.”

Harvey looked weary. “We are all here to discover what is true, Mr. Ilavinik. Not your opinion.”

Seizing an opportunity, McCaul interjected, “Still, I feel it my duty to point out, your Lordship, that even their own people believe them guilty.”

Harvey was furious. “Mr. McCaul, that has nothing to do with anything, and I strongly suggest you restrict yourself from such cheap, unprofessional snipes in my courtroom! Clerk, strike Mr. McCaul’s last statement from the record. And jury members, you will ignore that last comment by Mr. McCaul.”

McCaul looked sheepish.

“So where does that leave us?” the Justice mused.

In the moment of silence that followed, Creed summed up their prospects as rather bleak. McCaul was running roughshod over Wallbridge, they had no defence witnesses who had met the priests, and the Eskimo interpreter had made it clear he believed the defendants were lying. The whole thing was going exceedingly poorly. He looked over at Angituk and the two worried hunters.