GRANT, Shelagh D., 2002, Arctic justice: On trial for murder, Pond Inlet, 1923, Montréal and Kingston, McGill-Queen's University Press, 342 pages, maps, photographs.

Shelagh Grant's meticulous examination of the "murder" of Newfoundland trader, Robert Janes by an Inuk called Nuqallaq, on 15 March 1920, offers the reader a story in riveting detail — the result of careful archival research combined with Inuit recollections and opinions of the murder and its aftermath. This is a text well endowed with many photographs. Like any play, paraded in front of critics, and even befuddled viewers, Grant's text leaves us holding the possibility of multiple scripts. Janes was a nasty guy. Or was he merely a man made nasty by choices with consequences beyond his comprehension, among people he didn't — or didn't care to — understand, inside a moment of history, following an awfully bloody war, where any possibility of escape (especially the discovery of a pot of gold) would be prized? And failure to take the prize would be a worm, eating its way into a personal history, rotting reason and relations with others in the process. Janes deserves a biography in his own right. Grant gives us the classic "flashback" to get started. We have a popular and graphic glimpse of the murder in all its grisly detail. This scene on the ice of Prince Regent Inlet, just off Cape Crauford (also spelt "Crawford" in the text), on the northern tip of Baffin Island, introduces the reader to characters, circumstances and conditions embodied in Janes' corpse. Or was it murder? Janes first went north with Joseph Bernier aboard the CGS Arctic in 1910. This, and a previous trip Bernier made in 1906, had the "expressed purpose of affirming sovereignty over the Arctic Archipelago" (p. 31). Like so many telltale personal tragedies in Canadian history, this one has men moiling for gold, coal, furs and anything else of value, in a corner of the continent previously exploited only by American and Scottish whalers. Even the affable Arctic pilot, Joseph Bernier, gets caught up in these exploits, with the purchase of land around the Igarjuaq whaling station in Eclipse Sound, and visions of a thriving fur trade. By 1916, Janes had returned to the Pond Inlet area from Newfoundland and joined a nondescript number of rogues looking for gold nuggets, spurred on by spurious stories originating with Scottish whalers. Not unlike many northern traders, Janes soon took on a "country wife," an Inuk woman (Kalluk) who lived with both Janes and her husband. Grant does a credible job serving the reader intricacies that may have contributed to Janes' death: jealousies involving Kalluk, Janes' failure as a trader, his debt, failure to depart for the south when given the opportunity in the summer of 1919, and his unsuccessful attempt to leave the Arctic by making an incredible trip south through Admiralty Inlet to Igloolik and eventually Fort Churchill. Ultimately, we are left with the picture of a belligerent and temperamental man using threats of physical violence to express himself; behaviour, that ultimately leads to Janes' demise. Grant is entirely sympathetic with those Inuit camped on the sea ice the night of 15 March 1920, principle among them being Nuqallaq. She raises the issue of whether or not an act, decided by the Inuit community camped on the ice and who decided to dispatch Janes for the sake of their own safety and survival — in accord with Inuit practice under such circumstances — constitutes murder. The question arises from a detailed recount of the trial, including the reproduction of transcripts and interviews with Inuit recalling the event and stories surrounding it. These are note-worthy compliments to the text. For anyone watching the play in international courts, Grant's …