“No. I think there’s more tolerance than there used to be, or it could be a lack of ‘enough is enough.’ In the olden days, it seems to me like people would take care of their own problems. I’ve had those experiences in Point Aconi, on the island there and in other isolated communities. They won’t take any shit. They clean out their own place. There’s no point calling the cops—‘It takes them forty minutes to get here, and the problem is here right now, so I’m going to get rid of it.’ I’ve seen that in Gabarus, I’ve seen it in Marion Bridge. They do their own policing.”
This sounds a lot like taking the law into your own hands—but ultimately, says Parent, “crime is not the police problem, it’s the community problem.” If the police don’t have community support, they can’t function. When Phillip was hiding, for instance, “those who were in the know just wouldn’t tell us. So if you want it that way, okay, you live with it. When he was on the run there, when we were looking for him, we got no help from nobody. That went on for about two, three weeks, and then one person who’d had enough pointed me where he was, and that’s where I went.”
According to the police and the courts and the media, the killing of Phillip Boudreau split and divided the community, tore its fabric, created wounds that would take decades to heal. No, not really. One might reasonably have expected such a split, and people on the island certainly held vigorously differing opinions. But arching over the whole episode is an almost universal mood of sorrow, regret, and guilt. Phillip was an outlaw, but not an outcast. You hear it over and over: It shouldn’t have happened. Nobody deserves to die that way. Those guys aren’t killers. We should have stopped it.
A few days after the jury delivered its verdict, the CBC interviewed André LeBlanc, an Isle Madame community development worker and a contemporary of Dwayne and Phillip.
“As a community, you feel a sense of guilt that you’ve failed,” said André. “You’ve failed all those involved, including Phillip’s family and the Samson-Landry family. We have to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Had nobody bought the lobsters, Phillip would have had no choice but to earn a living honestly. And if the community had reached out and offered him some opportunities, perhaps none of this would ever have happened.”
Yes, though even that is not so simple. People did offer Phillip opportunities, most notably Marcel and Kim Heudes, who flew him to Calgary for a complete restart—an intervention that briefly turned his life around and might have done so permanently had everyone stayed in Calgary. And Marcel wasn’t the only one to offer opportunities to change. Edgar Samson of Premium Seafoods says, “I used to tell him, ‘Phillip, why don’t you work? I need workers, you know. Why don’t you work and make a few dollars and help support your mother and father?’ He said he didn’t want to hear of it.”
At some level, Phillip probably liked the life he’d created—his freedom from direction, for example, and his power over others who often despised him. In some respects he was a manipulative genius, like Shakespeare’s Iago, bringing out the worst in people, playing on their inherent weaknesses, their cowardice and cupidity. When people say “You got better deals from Phillip than you ever got from Walmart,” you can see them fertilizing the soil in which a Phillip can flourish. At one level he was a tyrant—terrorizing people, defying them to act against him—and at another level he was a tool, acting out the dark wishes of those around him, often for pay. As several people have said, “There’s plenty of guilt to go around.”
If we think back to John Borrows’s description of the law as something from which we draw guidance, then we can see that forgiveness, rehabilitation, and self-critical reflection are also aspects of law as the Indigenous peoples understand it—and surely any robust understanding of law must include those features. This, incidentally, is how we will all benefit from the process of reconciliation between the imported cultures and the Indigenous ones; reconciliation and a deep, respectful understanding of Indigenous traditions will enlarge both our perception of our situation as humans and the scope of our moral imaginations.
This is where the story comes to rest: with a community reaching for redemption, deeply saddened and shocked, reflecting on the patterns of its relationships, trying to understand how the criminal became a victim while the victims became criminals. By the end of 2018, James and Dwayne, who had been model prisoners, were both on full parole, back in the community where they belonged, deeply regretful, picking up the threads of their lives.
Phillip Boudreau, however, would not come walking out of the sea, dripping with brine and festooned with kelp and eelgrass. His community would be reflecting on his death for a long time to come. Our way forward, its people were saying, is to learn how we failed, how we let this situation spin out into tragedy. Our way forward is to become better, braver, and smarter, so that we will not fail one another again.
Phillip Boudreau and his dog Brudy.
Photo courtesy of the Boudreau family
A view of Petit de Grat, Nova Scotia, looking westward from the bridge and the fishermen’s wharf.
Photo courtesy of Silver Donald Cameron
Dwayne and Carla Samson leave the courtroom after he wins day parole, June 19, 2018.
© Nancy King, Cape Breton Post
James Landry, convicted of manslaughter November 28, 2014, released on parole December 19, 2018, died November 3, 2019.
Photo courtesy of the Samson/Landry family
Craig Landry leaves the courtroom September 11, 2015, after sentencing.
© Nancy King, Cape Breton Post
Twin Maggies, the fishing boat that became a weapon in the Phillip Boudreau killing.
Photo courtesy of Silver Donald Cameron
Police guard the fishing boat Twin Maggies, June 1, 2013.
© Jake Boudrot, The Reporter
The battered hull of Midnight Slider, Phillip Boudreau’s boat, displayed for the jury in the courthouse basement.
© Aly Thomson, Canadian Press Images
The Port Hawkesbury Justice Centre.
Photo courtesy of Silver Donald Cameron
Nash Brogan (left) and TJ McKeough, Dwayne and Carla Samson’s defence lawyers.
Photo courtesy of Silver Donald Cameron
Crown Prosecutors Shane Russell (left) and Steve Drake.
© Andrew Vaughan, Canadian Press Images
Luke Craggs, James Landry’s defence lawyer.
Photo courtesy of Silver Donald Cameron
Joel Pink, Craig Landry’s defence lawyer.
Photo courtesy of Silver Donald Cameron
James Landry’s boat T-Buddy, fished by his daughter Carla Samson during his incarceration.
Photo courtesy of the Samson/Landry family
Marcel Heudes, Phillip Boudreau’s friend and sometimes employer.
Photo courtesy of Silver Donald Cameron
Thilmond Landry, Phillip Boudreau’s neighbour.
Photo courtesy of Silver Donald Cameron
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In December 2016 I found myself wintering in Vancouver, working on this book and needing some additional interviews. I flew home to Nova Scotia and spent two weeks moseying around Isle Madame and talking to people. One of them was Edgar Samson, who, with his late cousin Brian, has built Premium Seafoods from a small local fish plant into a successful international business headquartered in Arichat. I have known and admired Edgar since he was a very young man. He belongs to a large and brilliantly entrepreneurial family; people on the island sometimes joke that the Samson businesses actually are the economy of Isle Madame. Articulate, warm, and astute, Edgar is generally my preferred source on issues relating to the fishery, and I enjoyed my conversation with him.
I met Edgar again in the departure lounge of Stanfield International Airport in Halifax. He was he
ading off for a cycling vacation in Vietnam, which tells you how deeply the island has become connected with the rest of the globe. He wanted to know how my research had gone.
Well, fine, I said. I had gathered some terrific interviews—vivid, funny, thoughtful—but I had actually come to wonder if I should finish the book. Most people were eager to help and eager to read it—but a significant minority, including some people I deeply respected, felt that it was a bad idea to dredge the story up again. For them, it was time to put the whole episode behind us and move on.
Actually, Edgar, I said, I’d really like to know what you think. The last thing I want to do is give pain to people I love.
Edgar looked out over the runways for a few long moments. Then he turned back to me.
“You should finish the book,” he said firmly. “You’ll be fair and honest, and the book will help the island to heal.”
Looking back on it, I think the fate of the book actually hung in the balance at that moment. Whenever I’ve had my doubts—and I’ve had plenty of them—I go back to that conversation. I am deeply grateful to Edgar, and through him, to the scores of people who gave me the support and insight that I needed to write this book. I really don’t know where to begin thanking them. In truth, this book was nearly half a century in the making, and in expressing my gratitude to Edgar Samson, I intend for him to represent all those people, living and dead, who gave me what I needed to write it—and who gave me so much else that I needed throughout what is now a long and happy life. I am not just grateful for their help with the book. I am grateful for their tolerance, affection, and generosity on every front and at every turn.
I did not speak about Phillip’s death with the four people accused of his murder, though I asked several times. They were perfectly willing to talk about other matters, but they had nothing to gain by talking about the crime, and possibly a lot to lose. Dwayne’s parole doesn’t completely end till 2025, and, as Carla Samson said while politely declining an interview, “Silence has served us well.” Her father, James Landry, died on November 3, 2019.
I do have some specific acknowledgments to make, starting with the people in the legal system, particularly Chief Justice Joseph Kennedy, the prosecutors Dan MacRury, Stephen Drake, and Shane Russell, and the defence lawyers Luke Craggs, Joel Pink, Nash Brogan, and T.J. McKeough. I’m grateful to Kevin Patriquin and Larry Evans for background about the legal culture of Nova Scotia, and particularly of the Strait of Canso area. Dana Hunt, the deputy prothonotary of the court in Port Hawkesbury, was unfailingly helpful in finding and providing essential CDs and transcripts.
I am extremely grateful to the people on and off Isle Madame who were willing to be quoted and named in the book, but also to the many people who were willing to share what they knew but very reluctant to see their names used. You can get some idea of the discussion from the comments on Parker Donham’s blog, Contrarian.ca. I am glad those people gave me what they could, and I gladly protect their privacy.
Some of the historical material came from conversations with my great friend, the late Marshall Bourinot (1904–1991), publisher of the long-vanished Richmond County Record. I learned a great deal from the late Lorenzo Boudreau, who devoted much of his life to documenting the intricate genealogy of Isle Madame. I have also relied on the work of Lorenzo’s son, Don Boudrot, a retired teacher who is the most active local historian in Isle Madame today. Stephen White, the legendary genealogist at the Centre d’Études Acadiennes at the Université de Moncton, was generous with his assistance, as he always is. I am deeply grateful for the help of my friends Denise Saulnier and Edwin and Joan DeWolf, and to Peter Zimmer, whose astute comments led me to find a workable structure for this complex story.
My agent, Denise Bukowski, and my publisher, Diane Turbide, provided invaluable feedback, as did my brother Kenneth and—of course—my beloved wife, the author Marjorie Simmins.
I hope I have not forgotten anyone, but with a book of this nature, I almost certainly have—and I apologize very sincerely. I am sure this book has other faults and failings as well—and as always, alas, those mistakes are all mine.
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