Coppermine (33 page)

Just then, three men brusquely entered the courtroom. Creed and Angituk both stared at the new arrivals with surprise and relief. It was John Hornby and Koeha from the mouth of the Coppermine! They were accompanied by Corporal Oberly from Fort Norman, in field uniform. Koeha was wearing his light summer sealskins, while the diminutive Hornby sported an old wool coat with an astrakhan collar and was holding a fox-fur hat in his hands. Angituk smiled at Wallbridge and told him loudly enough for everyone in the courtroom to hear, “It’s Koeha!”

Wallbridge could not believe his ears: the one witness who could turn this trial around. A murmur of excitement passed through the courtroom and every head turned to see the new faces. Wallbridge asked for the court’s indulgence and gestured the men up to the front. Koeha stared around the room in awe at the number of people and the impressive structure of the court. Creed stood and shook hands with Koeha, Hornby, and Oberly.

“They just showed up in Norman one day,” Oberly explained. “We thought you could use them.”

“You thought right.”

Koeha gave Angituk a friendly wave and smile.

“I decided to come and see how they live down here and what goes on with Uluksuk and Sinnisiak,” Angituk translated for Koeha, as happy as Creed to see him.

Creed then introduced Koeha and Hornby to a delighted Wallbridge. Both men could prove huge assets to the defence. Koeha was pleased to see Creed, but he and Hornby were intimidated by the crowded courtroom.

Justice Harvey banged his gavel and they all jumped. “Mr. Wallbridge, I can see this is a happy reunion, but may we please get on with the business of the court.”

“Of course, your Lordship. As you may have heard, this is Koeha, the leader of the Coppermine camp where the priests ministered. And this is John Hornby, who guided for Father Rouvière. If it pleases the court, my next witness.”

McCaul objected to the unforeseen introduction of these defence witnesses, but Justice Harvey overruled him. “I’d like to hear what they have to say. They have come all this way for our benefit, Mr. McCaul. So I will agree, Mr. Wallbridge, as long as we can proceed in a timely manner.”

“Then I’d like Mr. Sinnisiak to stand down temporarily, your Lordship, and I will examine Misters Hornby and Koeha to establish a context before the critical portion of Sinnisiak’s testimony.”

Justice Harvey allowed it.

“Finally, your Lordship, I must object to continuing with the present interpreter,” Wallbridge came out forcefully. “Mr. Ilavinik has proven himself biased against my clients and must be replaced.”

“Well, then, what about your interpreter, Mr. Wallbridge? Let us have your boy take his place, shall we? If he’s capable.”

“Oh, he’s capable, your Lordship.”

“Very well, then. Mr. Ilavinik, you may go.”

Wallbridge looked at Angituk with a nod of encouragement. Ilavinik stood up with a hostile glare at Sinnisiak and another at Angituk, then exited the courtroom. Angituk looked at the vacant chair she was about to fill. John Hornby took the stand, a little unnerved by the hundreds of faces.

“Mr. Hornby, can you start by telling us about when you first met Father Rouvière,” Wallbridge inquired, “and your impressions of him?”

“Yes, I can.”

The court sat in silence, waiting.

“So will you do that for us, please?”

“Oh! Yes, of course.”

In his halting, slightly confused manner Hornby spoke about Rouvière with affection. “Very good-natured. Always cheerful. Never complained. Not the most skilled in living in the North, mind you. He’d make an awful mess of skinning a squirrel. You know, it’s harder to skin a squirrel than a caribou. I once skinned nine caribou in a single day. It was at Thelon River in nineteen hundred and twelve. Or was it the Calder River in eleven?”

“Yes, Mr. Hornby, but what about Father Rouvière?”

“Father Rouvière wasn’t on the Calder River.”

“No, I mean … the Dease and the Dismal Lakes.”

“The hunting season is early there. After the first of November there’s nothing.”

“No, we want to know about Father Rouvière when you guided him on the Dease. How did you get along?”

“Oh, very well. He was a very good man. Good heart. He’d make jokes. And he sure loved the Huskies. The Eskimos.”

“Did he feel his ministry was progressing among them?”

“Well, we only met them the once, for a few days. He was frustrated he couldn’t speak their lingo. He was hoping this new priest would learn to communicate with them.”

“You mean Father Guillaume Le Roux.”

“Yeah, that one.”

“You met Father Le Roux in Fort Norman.”

“Yes. I like to go into Norman. There’s an Indian woman there makes a great bear stew.”

“But what about Father Le Roux?”

“I don’t know if he liked the stew or not. I don’t even know if he tried it. You have to cook it long and slow or the meat is tough and oily.”

“Yes, Mr. Hornby, but please tell us your impressions of Father Le Roux.”

Hornby thought about this a moment and then unleashed an uncharacteristic flood of clear comment and description.

“Le Roux was a first-class, grade A horse’s ass, ordering people around. Especially the Cree in Norman. Can only imagine how he acted among the Huskies. And they’re a sensitive bunch. Right away he started in on me about my sins. Didn’t like my girl, Arimo. Then he takes half my supplies, ‘for the glory of God,’ he said. I’ll give him glory. But the worst thing was how he treated Father Rouvière, ordering him around, speaking to him like his superior. I felt badly for him, but I wasn’t going to stay and guide them if Le Roux was there. So that was it. I quit them in Norman. And that was the last time I laid eyes on them. I do feel badly for what happened.”

When Koeha was called to the stand, Justice Harvey gestured to Angituk. “Mr. McAndrew? Please take your seat.”

She looked at Creed, proud in this new responsibility. She stood and went to sit in the interpreter’s chair beside Koeha.

Koeha was sworn in, in a similar manner to Sinnisiak: “Whatever you speak now, you speak straight; do not speak with two tongues.”

After his initial apprehension, Koeha quickly warmed to his task. Wallbridge wisely chose a question or two to break the ice.

“Mr. Koeha, how do you like Edmonton?”

“It is like a magic dream. How do you grow your dogs so big?”

“The dogs?”

“The dogs that pull the big sled with the round things.”

Angituk helped here. “He means the horses pulling wagons.”

There was cautious chuckling in the courtroom and Harvey let it go. Wallbridge engaged nicely in the discussion.

“They are not dogs. They are horses, a different animal, like a caribou without horns.”

Koeha nodded thoughtfully, thankful for the clarification. He seemed to assume his testimony was a casual give-and-take conversation. Looking around at the expansive courtroom, he asked Justice Harvey, “And did you carve this igloo of yours out of a mountain?”

Harvey responded quickly to the question, and Angituk translated, telling Koeha, “No. They built this from wood and stone blocks, like an ice house is built.”

“This is some big ice house.”

Angituk explained these impressions to the amusement of the courtroom. After the ponderous, heavy-footed translations of Ilavinik, the interpretations by “Mr.” McAndrew were deft and vivid . The new interpreter had suddenly given, so the newspapers would report, a whole new life and immediacy to the trial. E.K. Mainprize made notes that would appear in
The New York Times:

With the replacement interpreter, at once a new personality is felt. A slight, dark-haired boy of about sixteen, Angituk McAndrew has a face that is almost aristocratic. He is alert and catches instantly what he is asked to transmit. There is a gleam of mischief in his oddly blue eyes. His answers, promptly and clearly rendered, have a humorous twist. The struggle with translation ends.

Wallbridge pressed on. “So you are enjoying your visit here?”

“Yes. It is very nice to visit the land of the
Kabloona
and will be very nice to get home.”

Justice Harvey’s patience was nearing an end. “Mr. Wallbridge, would you care to get on with pertinent questions.”

“Of course, your Lordship. Mr. Koeha, can you tell us about the two white men? When did you first see them?”

“It was Kormik that brought them. He was hunting summer caribou down at the trees and they came back with him. We had never seen
Kabloona
before. With their big eyes, they looked like beluga whales.”

There was stifled laughter at the back of the courtroom.

“We called the one man Kuleavik, because he always smiled. We called the second man Ilogoak, because he wore the long black gown. We did not know they were shamans. We thought at first they were there to trade, but they had no goods. Then we thought they were there to hunt caribou, but they were poor hunters and missed, even with their guns. Once they shot a rabbit but didn’t kill it, and it suffered. Finally they chopped off its head and tried to skin it. They made an awful mess of it and so we saw few rabbits for two summers because of this disrespect.

“We found it odd that they had no women partners to make them clothing and prepare food. We had no idea what these white men wanted. They showed pictures of the good place up in the sky and the bad place of fire down under the earth or the ice, things to do with our hands.” Koeha put his hands together in prayer then crossed himself. “They put tiny pieces of food in our mouths and chanted. We let them do it. It made them happy. Our women sewed up new boots for them. Their clothing was no good.”

Angituk translated these long statements in an efficient rhythm and Koeha needed only to pause slightly to accommodate her.

“We liked Kuleavik. He could make jokes in sign language and we’d all laugh. But Ilogoak did not laugh. He would shout at us and threaten us with a stick. They stayed with us for a few days. It was a time of no food. The fish were gone from the rivers and the caribou from the land, but the sea ice was not yet strong enough to hunt seal or walrus. Many of us thought the two white men had caused the animals to be gone. That was very serious.

“Ilogoak had promised the hunter Kormik that he would give his rifle to him if Kormik got them to the mouth of the Coppermine. But he lied, so Kormik took the rifle and put it in his tent. Ilogoak saw it was gone and was very angry.”

Wallbridge interrupted him. “Mr. Koeha, tell us how your people view the expression of anger. Is it normal? A common thing?”

“No, to show anger is immature . indulgent. And if it continues, it can mean a bad spirit has entered a man.”

“And how, Mr. Koeha, is a bad spirit dealt with?”

“We send them away or, if they won’t go, we pack up and leave.”

“What if you can’t go away and they won’t go either?”

“If such a man threatens lives, the others will consider killing him. It will be discussed among the elders.”

“Murder, for the good of the community?”

“Yes. It is a terrible thing, but it frees the soul of the man from the bad spirit. Afterwards, forgiveness is asked from the ghost.”

“All right, so Father Le Roux—Ilogoak—was angry. What did he do then?”

“He took the second rifle and pointed it at Kormik and demanded he give the rifle back. Kormik refused. They argued until Kormik’s mother was afraid and got the rifle and gave it back to Ilogoak. Then Kormik was angry. We had never seen him like this. Maybe the bad spirit was in him too. We were worried Kormik and the white man might kill one another. The white men had to go. I gave the
Kabloona
a little food and two dogs to help pull their qamutik. I helped them get safely out of the camp on their way south. They were very weak and hungry, but I thought they’d be all right when they got to the land of the trees.

“The shaman Uluksuk was staying near our camp with his friend Sinnisiak. We knew these men and were friendly with them. Two days after the
Kabloona
left, Uluksuk and Sinnisiak went up toward Bloody Falls to fish. When they returned three days later, they had the white men’s rifles, their clothing, pictures, and books. They told everyone they had to kill the
Kabloona.”

“Do you think they followed them up the river to kill them and steal their rifles?”

“I don’t think so. They went to fish, and meet Sinnisiak’s cousin.”

“Did they tell you why they killed them?”

“They told us when they met the white men they were starving. They had not made much distance. They were angry. They asked the hunters to pull their qamutik. Uluksuk and Sinnisiak pulled for a day, but on the second day the priests were acting strange and the hunters wanted to leave them and go home.”

“What did they mean by ‘acting strange’?”

“They said that one man, Ilogoak, pointed his gun at them and said he would kill them if they didn’t pull the sled. But they believed the priests were possessed by evil spirits. So near Bloody Falls the hunters killed them instead.”

“Did they describe how they killed them?”

“No. We didn’t ask questions.”

“But you did go to Bloody Falls to see them.”

“Yes. We went to see them for ourselves. They had bindings on their hands and feet put on after they were dead.”

“What were the bindings for?”

“To hold the spirits in. We were scared of them, but after two days the spirits had to be released. We cut the bindings on their hands and feet to allow the spirits to leave. Then we placed stones on top of them and around them to mark their place, and then we ran away.”

“In the world you believe there are many spirits.”

“Yes, there are spirits everywhere.”

“Do you feel them here in this room?”

“No. Here in this village I do not feel them anywhere.”

“You feel them strongly where you live, in the North, beyond the trees.”

“Yes. The North is full of spirits.”

“Are they good spirits?”

“There are some good ones. Some animal spirits can be good and give you food. And some spirits of dead people can help you if you respect them. But there are many bad spirits out there to avoid. Especially at Bloody Falls, where many were killed even before these white men came. Often the spirits of dead people are jealous of the living. They want us to join them. That is why we ran.”