Customer Reviews

Bloody Falls of the Coppermine: Madness, Murder, and the Collision of Cultures in the Arctic, 1913

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I thouroughly enjoyed this book. Jenkins does a great job piecing together the story from letters, court records & scattered oral history. The first half of the book is a lot of adventure & was hard to put down. The second part included a lot of lawyer-speak in court, but it wasn't overdone. This is a great example of manifest destiny at work. After reading the epilogue of "Bloody Falls...", I've come to the conclusion that neither the Catholics nor the Eskimos won! ps. All of Jenkins' books are great!

This fascinating piece of history and investigative journalism explores the ramifications brought about by the deaths of two priests in far northern Canada in 1913, at the hands of Eskimos in what could be considered a catastrophic case of cultural misunderstanding. McKay Jenkins offers an interesting look at the cultures of both the Eskimos and the first Whites who tried to enter the frozen north permanently, as well as showing some insight into each culture's worldview and proclivities toward misunderstanding the other. Jenkins then describes the impressive efforts of the Mounted Police in tracking down the two perpetrators and hauling them back to the white man's city for what may have been history's strangest trials - in which the media, judge, and lawyers behaved with a bizarre mix of cultural condescension, morbid fascination, and political correctness. Jenkins justifiably uses this sad but entertaining story as an example of the problems of colonialism, illustrating the difficulties faced by long-established cultures when they try to adapt to other environments or customs. Here we see that the Eskimos were indeed nomads but were far from uncivilized, as they had built a strong knowledge of their demanding environment over centuries, while the incoming Whites may have appeared to be civilized but were themselves cultural nomads who were nearly helpless in a forbidding landscape. The result, as seen in this book's story, was tragedy, but also a quite interesting cultural lesson about cooperation and humility. [~doomsdayer520~]

Wow! What an interesting tale of murder and justice in the Arctic Circle at the turn of the last century. I had no idea how much I would enjoy this book when I picked it up. It has a lot to say about colonialism and the concept of justice.

Warning! If you do not know how this story turns out and you get this book in Hard Cover, the inside flap of the dust jacket summarizes the whole story including the outcome. At least let it be somewhat open-ended. I was so disappointed, I actually put off reading this book. Dumb! This book turned out to be one of the best and exciting books I've read in a long time. The story and the writing definitely made up for knowing how it ends.

McKay Jenkins does an excellent job researching and writing this tale of murder, investigation, and trial involving a collision of cultures between the Inuit people in the Arctic and the western world of missionaries, law enforcement, and jury system. Priest Jean-Baptiste Rouviere, who was later joined by the often ill-tempered priest Guillaume LeRoux, set out to the far reaches of the north with no hunting, carpentry, or navigational skills, no experience in the extreme northern climate, and no knowledge of the native language. They were aided, for a time, by the legendary, albeit mostly unreliable, frontiersman Jack Hornby.

Inexplicably, in October 1913, the two priests began their trek north following a group of natives (including Sinnisiak who was known for a near violent altercation with Hornby) at the onset of winter while in poor physical condition. It proved a fatal decision. They met their end at Bloody Falls where the Coppermine River empties into Coronation Gulf. Stories began to circulate throughout the Northwest Territories that the priests were killed by two Eskimos--Sinnisiak and Uluksuk.

Inspector Charles Dearing and Corporal Wyndham Bruce led investigations into the priests' disappearance, finding many of their articles in the possession of natives. Once they found the two suspects and received confessions, they took them to Canada for trial. But did the natives, in fact, act in self defense against the two men of God? A jury of white men--hardly a jury of their peers--would decide.

The book proved very exciting and entertaining. I looked forward to picking up the story where I left off each evening and was actually bummed when it ended. I definitely recommend Bloody Falls of the Coppermine. Five stars all the way!

"Now one of virtue's main gifts is a contempt for death, which is the means of furnishing our life with easy tranquillity, of giving us a pure and friendly taste for it; without it every other pleasure is snuffed out." Michel de Montaigne-1572 from Essay To Philosphize Is to Learn How to Die.

You feel a great sense of outrange, sorrow, shame, and pity after reading this book. Mr Jenkins' vivid description of the unbelievable tale of tragic Artic Circle ,tale of strang murder trail in 1913. You cannot help but feel outranged how the Eskimos were unjustly treated; you cannot help but feel sorrow how the Eskimos would be unprepared for the "white man" after thousand years of isolation; you cannot help but feel shame for the all-white jury and how they behaved during the trail; you cannot help but feel pity for the courage Eskimos displayed and injustice they faced. This book is about crime and punishment at Artic Circle, a clash of Western civilization and native culture, a man's courage and will to survive in a hostile envinoment (ie the Western developed world), a very clear example of how not to impose one's views and culture customs on another people. The book also contained many eye-opening black and white photography of the highest historical and cultural importance. I thank the author Mr. Jenkins for giving me the opportunity to learn about this bone-chilling and interesting history.

I've read this book, but long before I researched the murders and subsequent events because I was re-issuing George Douglas's Lands Forlorn. Douglas met one of the priests Father Rouvier and spent a lot of time with him during one winter and spring. Highly recommended book and if you'd like to read another classic, try Lands Forlorn, and you'll be able to place the priests' murders in much better context.

The beginning of this book is a bit difficult to follow and somewhat slow to start. You have all of these French priests, some other trappers and travelers, all going from and going to different places. It's difficult to follow when things happened, who was there, etc, as well, but the book does get more interesting as it goes on, and whatever opinions you may have about how things transpired and who was right/wrong will surely change as you read about the trial of these Eskimos. To someone relatively well-educated about the Arctic, the book is another one that proves white people really wrecked the Inuit, their culture and their management of their lives. It is also interesting that mere minutes of misunderstanding and someone's poor choice (however insignificant it may seem) resulted in so much time and money in the future. Throughout the book, the author gives interesting insights (ie, how seemingly uneducated it was on the part of the Catholic church to try to convert people in such a remote and different environment) without really injecting too much opinion and ruining the events of the novel.

All in all, good book about a little-known event. The author probably should have put part of the epilogue into the prologue to present his thoughts before the book began; that may have made it a bit more interesting for me. I would've also liked to see a full map of NWT/Nunavut in the front instead of a zoomed-in map, just to show how remote this area is to readers who are unfamiliar with the geography.