Jim Nantuck (d. 1899)
Jim Nantuck was a Tagish Kwan man from Marsh Lake who belonged to the Crow clan. At the start of the Klondike gold rush, Jim Nantuck packed for stampeders over the Chilkoot Pass. Two of his relatives died suddenly after eating something they got from one of the stampeders. The Crow clan thought the food was deliberately poisoned and turned against white people. Sometime later two white men (Fox and Meehan) went up the McClintock River to prospect. Four Crow clan men (Jim, Dawson, Frank, and Joe Nantuck in the accounts) were on the riverbank when the boat came by. They shot Fox and Meehan. Meehan died and Fox played dead. The Nantucks ran away, and the boat drifted down to Marsh Lake where Fox made it to shore and reported the incident to the police.1)
Corporal Edwin Rudd and three other members of the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) detachment at Tagish were ordered by Inspector Strickland to go with Dr. William Barrett to investigate the shooting of Fox and Meehan by the Nantuck brothers on May 1st, 1898. The party arrived at McIntosh's camp on Marsh Lake late at night and got the story from a very weak Fox. They made inquiries at the First Nation camps in the area and found the Nantuck's camp the next morning. They searched all day and about 9 pm came upon a camp where they found Jim Nantuck, three women, nine-year-old Rabbits, and three other children. They detained Rabbits and arrested Jim Nantuck for murder.2) An interpreter told Jim of the charge and he denied all knowledge of the crime. The police found Fox and Meehan's names on a bag of flour and they also found a valise of personal items in the camp. Jim then admitted that he had shot at one white man but didn't kill him. On May 15th, a scout found tracks of three men leading from Marsh Lake to Lake Laberge. Rudd left for Laberge by canoe and sent two men overland to follow the tracks.3)
Rudd warned the First Nation residents at Lake Laberge not to give the fugitives any supplies and over the next four days the NWMP came close to the fugitives but never caught them. Rudd left two scouts at Laberge and returned to Tagish on May 20th for supplies. On May 23rd, Sam Fowler, a First Nation scout employed by the NWMP, captured Dawson, Frank, and Joe Nantuck on Marsh Lake and left them in the custody of McIntosh at his camp. Rudd returned to Marsh Lake and took custody of the men.4)
Dawson and Joe were placed in the charge of Constable Schwartz and escorted to Tagish. Rudd took charge of Frank, interrogating him, and Frank confessed to his participation in the shooting. On May 25th, Rudd led Frank to the scene of the shooting and located where the Nantucks had put Meehan in the river. He was anchored in swift water with a pickax tied to his waist. Rudd had to have bigger grappling hooks made in order to retrieve the body. William Meehan's body was retrieved on the morning of May 27th and the next day, Rudd brought Frank Nantuck and the body to Tagish Post.5)
Frank Nantuck died of scurvy and consumption on 13 February 1899 and Joe Nantuck died in a similar manner five days later. Dawson and Jim suffered from the same affliction. The death sentence was reprieved three times and the judicial process took over a year to conclude. Dawson and Jim Nantuck were hanged in Dawson City on 4 August 1899.6)
In the 1990s, Leonard Linklater heard about Jim and Dawson Nantuck when he was in British Columbia attending the Institute of Indigenous Government. He began writing a play, Justice, about justice meaning different things to people of differing heritage. Gwaandak Theatre included the play in their 2012-23 season. The Department of Justice developed a curriculum to go with the play.7) Justice played in Ottawa at the National Arts Centre’s Northern Scene.8)