Northern Justice: The Memoirs of Mr Justice William G Morrow

Christopher English is a professor of history at the Memorial University
of Newfoundland.

The judging and advocacy of William G. Morrow, who served as duty
counsel to the Territorial Court of the Northwest Territories and as its
second permanent judge in 1966, was informed by a tendency to see issues
in black and white, stubbornness in the defence of what he felt was
right, a sense of duty, sympathy for the disadvantaged, and above all,
common sense.

Paternalistic and quick-tempered, Morrow comes across as a low-key but
dogged advocate and judge. The Sikyea (1960) and Drybones (1967) cases
both went to the Supreme Court and made new law. Morrow was sympathetic
to the idea of Native land claims and creative in his sentencing
policies, recognizing that Inuit culture is unique and that the law must
be tailored to reflect local realities. He avoided incarcerating Inuit
in the south, made sentences proportional to the shorter life span of
northern peoples, treated drunkenness as a social problem, and won
reforms in policing, legal aid, and court procedures. Despite what seems
to have been a rather lonely career outside the circle of his family,
Morrow relished his decade of northern adventure.

Presented in a straightforward style and impeccably edited, these
memoirs betray their origins in a daily diary. There is too much detail
on to-ing and fro-ing across the Arctic. But Morrow’s cases and the
issues involved therein are presented with clarity and economy.
Sometimes we would like to know more. For example, what were Ivan
Rand’s reminiscences as the two men sat in their hotel rooms during
his hearings on the Landreville affair in 1966? Nevertheless, a record
of the career of a modest and worthy man who was distinctly Canadian is
a welcome addition to our legal history.