Thou Shalt Do No Murder

This is a story of fur trade rivalry and duplicity,
isolation and abandonment, greed and
madness, and a struggle for the affections of
an Inuit woman during a time of major social
change in the High Arctic.
Doubts over the validity of Canadian
sovereignty and an official agenda to confirm
that sovereignty added to the circumstances
in which a guilty verdict against the leader of
the Inuit accused was virtually assured. The
show trial that took place in Pond Inlet in
1923 marked a collision of two cultures with
vastly different conceptions of justice and
conflict resolution. It marked an end to the
Inuit traditional way of life and ushered in an
era in which Inuit autonomy was supplanted
by dependence on traders and police, and later
missionaries.
Kenn Harper draws on a combination of Inuit
oral history, archival research, and his own
knowledge acquired through 50 years in the
Arctic to create a compelling story of justice
and injustice in the Canadian far north.