Taissumani: February 10, 1922: A Circus of Formality

KENN HARPER

In March of 1920, Nuqallaq, an Inuit leader in northern Baffin Island, with the assistance of other Inuit, killed Robert Janes, a Newfoundland trader, near Cape Crauford at the entrance to Admiralty Inlet. The reasons are complex. In August of the following year, Staff Sergeant Albert Herbert Joy reached Pond Inlet on the Hudson’s Bay Company ship, Baychimo. The Bay was establishing its most northerly fur trading post and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was simultaneously establishing a police detachment.

Headquarters’ instructions to Joy were all-encompassing: “A detachment is to be established at Pond Inlet, Baffin Island, and you have been selected to take charge of it. You have been appointed a justice of the peace in the Northwest Territories, in which Baffin Island is situated; a coroner, a special officer of the customs, and a postmaster of a post office located at Pond Inlet.”

On Dec. 26, on the first of his many famous Arctic patrols, Joy, travelling with a group of Inuit, disinterred Janes’s body from its crude rock grave on the shores of Brodeur Peninsula and brought it back to Pond Inlet. On Jan. 21, 1922, he conducted an autopsy.

Justice had to be carried out properly, thought Joy. That meant forms to be filled out, informations to be sworn and notices served. With only four white men in the district, Joy arranged a circus of formalities to deal with the trappings of white man’s law. On Jan. 23, he arranged that Wilfred Caron, an employee of another fur-trading company, would appear in his presence and swear an “Information to Hold Inquest.” Joy then swore Wilfred Parsons of the Hudson’s Bay Company in as “Special Constable,” so that Parsons could then issue a “Warrant to Summon a Jury” to Joy himself, who then duly served a “Summons to Jury” to each of Caron, Parsons and the latter’s assistant, Gaston Herodier.

Tellingly, Joy noted in his official report that these three were “all the competent men available as jurors.” Joy had given no thought to including Inuit on the jury. Parsons, although now a member of the jury, was still a Special Constable and in that capacity he next served a “Summons to Witness” to Coroner Joy and to the three Inuit men, Urulu, Tuurnaq and Ululijarnaaq, who had accompanied Joy in recovering the body of the deceased.

On the same day that this flurry of paperwork was handled, the coroner’s inquest opened at 4:30 in the afternoon. James Tooktosina, an Inuk from Labrador in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company, served as interpreter. With few buildings available, the inquest was held in the living room of the trading post. Other Inuit witnesses had to be called, and so there were numerous adjournments ordered by Coroner Joy so that he, in his role as Staff-Sergeant Joy, police officer, could summon the additional witnesses to testify. The inquest, in fact, went on until well into February. The Inuit who were summoned told what they knew of the events, and everything was duly interpreted for the benefit of the white men, who scrupulously noted everything said.

One can only wonder what impression this formality, this insistence on written testimony, this obsession with the trappings of southern justice, had on the Inuit. They cannot have understood the role that Joy, claiming to represent a country called Canada, would play in their lives and futures, and how he was different from the new traders, Parsons and Herodier. For now, they were all qallunaat, and the Inuit gave them all Inuktitut names. Parsons they dubbed “Nujaqanngittuq,” the bald one. Herodier became known as “Ataataluk,” the poor father. But Albert Herbert Joy was simply called “Saarjan,” an attempt to pronounce his rank rather than his name.

On February 10, the jury retired and returned with its verdict in 20 minutes. It read:

“That the said Robert Janes was shot to death on or about the end of March in the year one thousand nine hundred and twenty, the precise date being to the jurors unknown, at Cape Crauford in the North-west Territories. And that the cause of his death was that Nuqallaq alias Qiugaarjuk, Eskimo, did feloniously and of his malice aforethought kill and murder the said Robert Janes by shooting him through the body and head with a rifle, from which he instantly died.

“And do so further say that Ululijarnaaq, Eskimo, and Aatitaaq, Eskimo, did feloniously and of their malice aforethought aid and abet the said Nuqallaq alias Qiugaarjuk in committing the said felonious act.”

With a verdict in hand, Coroner Joy dismissed the jury the next day. Then, that same day, Parsons, acting again in his role as Special Constable, laid an Information and Complaint before Joy who now acted, not as police officer, but as Justice of the Peace. The complaint was against Nuqallaq, Ululijarnaaq and Aatitaaq for the murder of Robert Janes, contrary to section 263 of the Criminal Code. Later that day, Joy, still acting as Justice of the Peace, issued a Warrant to Apprehend for each of the three Inuit; he noted that these warrants were issued and “retained by me.” In fact, Joy as Justice of the Peace had directed Joy as police officer to arrest the three men. They were later tried for murder.

Taissumani: A Day in Arctic History recounts a specific event of historic interest, whose anniversary is in the coming week. Kenn Harper is a historian, writer and linguist who lives in Iqaluit.