Sidney Bullfrog, 55, was a taxi driver in Whapmagoostui, Québec, a Cree village on the shore of Hudson's Bay 1,102 km (689 miles) north of Ottawa. The village with a population of about 900, is part of a shared Cree-Inuit community with about 650 Inuit living in the neighbouring village of Kuujjuaraapik. The two villages are accessible from the south only by air, except in late summer when they can be reached by boat. About midnight on April 28, 1998 Mr. Bullfrog, who was Cree, was driving a 29-year-old Inuit man who had been drinking heavily. The younger man became enraged at Mr. Bullfrog, accusing him of driving to the wrong destination. The argument became a fistfight which spilled out of the cab and into the street. Mr. Bullfrog, who weighed close to 400 pounds, was beaten to the ground at which point the younger man began kicking him. Mr. Bullfrog was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. His body was transported to Montréal for an autopsy. The killer was arrested without incident at his home the next day. The police characterized him as "a very violent person who likes to fight." The man had previous arrests for arson, theft, car theft, assault, use of a weapon in a crime and drunken driving. In one incident the man said to be lucky to have emerged alive after he fired a weapon at a Sûreté du Québec SWAT team which was called in from Montréal when he barricaded himself in a house. The killer was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison on the joint recommendation of the Crown and defence. Crown prosecutor Marie-Chantal Brassard said the length of the sentence was decided upon by jurisprudence and northern precedence. “I don’t think it’s a lot, but that’s the North," she said. Noah Coonishish, the court's Cree liaison officer, thought it was a good sentence since “manslaughter is going at two years on the average.” Mr. Bullfrog's death provoked a wave of soul-searching about the disastrous effect of alcohol on the two villages, largely fueled by two bars located in Kuujjuarapik, both of them owned and run by the community. Inuit community worker Lydia Esperon said that more children than ever before were being neglected. Many roamed the streets at all hours of the night. Some hovered outside the bars waiting for their parents. [Next column]

Whapmagoostui and neighbouring Kuujjuaraapik are 1,102 km / 689 miles north of Ottawa. (Source: Google Maps.) "We are surrounded by alcohol and sadness," Ms Esperon said. "We need to find our spirit and take care of our kids." Ten years later nothing much had changed when the Nunatsiaq News ran this headlline in March, 2008: "More alcohol-fueled mayhem in booze-soaked Kuujjuaraapik." The article reported the deaths of two women elders who were run down and killed by a speeding snowmobile as they walked home from teaching a handicrafts class at the local gym. The drunken snowmobile driver had just left one of the bars. The article quoted comments that circuit judge Daniel Bédard's made in February, 2007, as he sentenced two young men for a deadly shooting spree that left one man dead and another badly wounded. "Inuit authorities, well aware of the social impact of alcohol abuse on the members of the community and the violence associated with it, permit the operations of the bars located in Kuujjuaraapik and Kuujjuaq," Bédard said. Bédard's comments were, however, ignored, and the two Kuujjuaraapik bars continue to operate.