A Rock Fell on the Moon

by Alicia Priest

  After five weeks of complex, conflicting testimony, Judge Parker instructed jurors on the difficult questions before them. Had Dad and Bobcik conspired to sell a substance containing silver, which they failed to prove they owned? Had they conspired to sell precipitates that Haina had admitted stealing? Had the two conspired to sell precipitates “unlawfully taken” by Priest during his assaying duties? Had they done the same with any concentrates Dad kept? Lastly, and this went to the heart of the criminal proceedings that pitted a Canadian mining giant against two former employees, was the ore from the Elsa mine or from the Moon?

  With that, the six jurors retired to deliberate. Twenty-eight hours ticked by before the jury returned unable to agree on the first charge of conspiring to sell silver. On the second charge, that the accused had stolen mill concentrates, the jury found Dad and Poncho not guilty. Both men, they concluded, had “an honest belief” that an assay office custom allowed them to keep concentrates from the assay process. On the third charge, that the two men had stolen mill precipitates, the jury found Bobcik guilty and Dad not guilty. The last charge, whether the two had attempted to sell stolen silver ore to the smelter, turned on the same issue as the first. The jury had to determine where the ore originated. Sent away for further deliberation, they returned more than two hours later, still deadlocked.

  The longest criminal proceeding in the Yukon to date had ended in a hung jury. Bobcik returned to jail to await sentencing for his conviction. Dad was free. He phoned Mom that night—damn the expense!—his relief giving way to relish. When she put down the phone, Mom scribbled at the bottom of her notebook “Hurrah! Victory!” Turn the page over though and there’s an addendum—“But not quite.”

  As he boarded the Canadian Pacific Douglas DC-6B home, Dad knew his war was far from won. The RCMP and the Crown would never give up now, not after the time and money they’d invested, and with Falconbridge breathing down their necks. At best, Dad had gained—for himself and for us—some precious free time.

  Chapter 16

  One Slippery Slope

  Was I not born to walk in scorn where others walk in pride?

  Not a single charge against my father had stuck. After more than a year of exhaustive legwork on the part of the Mounties, a record-setting preliminary hearing plus one of the lengthiest criminal trials in Yukon history, Dad was once again out on bail. The Crown was not amused.

  On an early Monday morning, in January 1965, an exasperated George Strathdee placed a fresh sheet of paper between the rollers of his Underwood typewriter and with a few slaps of the return bar began hammering away at the black keys. “It would be advantageous if a conference were held as soon as possible between Crown Counsel Wylie, Constable McKiel and myself with a view to reviewing the evidence produced at the recent trial in an attempt to eliminate all absolutely non-essential witnesses and also to strengthen any weak points in the Crown’s case,” Strathdee wrote.

  As lead on the file, Strathdee realized how confounding the evidence and testimony had been. If another jury had to grapple with the same snakepit of perplexing postulations about the composition of ore and the finer points of underground versus above ground oxidization, Dad would surely walk, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer-funded investigation and trial costs would swirl down the drain. The costs were already nearing double what the damn shipment was worth.

  Strathdee and McKiel had wanted to show how ore from the Elsa mine was stolen and by whom. But without a single eyewitness to corroborate the theft, they’d failed. Too many mineworkers (and jurors for that matter) disdained UKHM and its parent company, Falconbridge. Then the Crown’s efforts to prove that such rich ore could not have come from the Moon had also failed. The Crown’s only victory was that Bobcik was found guilty of one charge pertaining not to the raw ore, but to the precipitates stolen from the mill.

  Particularly galling to Strathdee, who’d always viewed Dad’s tale of hand-mining and hauling the ore off the Moon claims as an audacious lie, was that the jury had thought his fabrication plausible. Somehow a new jury had to be convinced that his story was about as real as Santa’s ninth reindeer. But how? After knocking their heads together, Strathdee, McKiel and Wylie decided that while the defense was certain to follow a similar script during the retrial, the Crown’s strategy would differ.

  In a land of ice, snow, rock and few roads, transportation has always been troublesome. The Eskimo, as the Inuit were then called, used dogs to pull sleds with runners made of whalebones or even frozen fish or caribou skins. Friction was reduced further by spitting on the runners, coating them in a thin sheen of ice. With the arrival of the Ski-Doo in 1959, the power of a gas-fired engine changed everything. Originally, the Quebec invention was called a Ski-Dog but a typo at the patent office was never corrected. Quaintly, it was also dubbed an “autoboggan” for a time. Despite its remarkable ability to whiz people and goods over deep snow, relying on such a machine to haul 70 tons of raw ore over multiple trips was another matter. The rock would need to be loaded on something strong and secure and dragged behind. Dad attached a toboggan behind his Ski-Doo. But not just any wooden toboggan. Anticipating extreme wear on the toboggan’s undersurface from the weight of the ore, Dad had told the court he’d ordered a fibreglass coating be applied to the bottom. It sounded impressive, as fibreglass was a relatively new product that was beginning to gain widespread use in the 1950s for boat hull and sports car construction. As a result, the toboggan had held up well. But after all that hauling, Dad explained, the red fibreglass coating had completely worn off.

  The Devil, they say, is in the details. And so for several weeks in the between-trial period Strathdee became obsessed with what had or had not been on the bottom of Dad’s specially ordered toboggan. Did he indeed have the bottom coated with fibreglass? Could every bit of the coating have totally worn off after repeated ore hauls, as Dad claimed? It was a humbling conclusion to come to, but the final outcome of the case could very well hinge on the particulars of a toboggan, rather than on the expertise of some of the brightest minds in Canadian geological and mineral sciences.

  Strathdee also realized they somehow had to disprove Dad’s claim that it was customary for assayers to keep concentrates and precipitates brought to the assay office from the mill. The jury had concluded that Dad and Poncho had done nothing wrong by including hundreds of pounds of such material in their ore shipment.

  While Dad had gained only a reprieve, it was hard to tell when he arrived home after the first trial that the prospect of a second one loomed over his head. “To the victor go the spoils,” Dad said teasingly between forkfuls of homemade chocolate cake. Still children more focused on dreams than plans, we longed for what we had previously taken for granted: a permanent home with a contented mother and father. That I was loved was never in doubt. I can’t speak for Vona, though, who frequently appeared miffed at my mere existence, especially when Dad was around.

  That evening after the dishes were done, Dad allowed Vona and me to watch two hours of TV while he and Mom took Caesar for a long walk. They weren’t home by bedtime and the next morning we knew the troubles that had struck our small family like a Biblical plague ever since we left Elsa were far from over. Mom had little to say and Dad spent hours ruminating at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of cold coffee and rolling one smoke after another, each one burning itself out in the ashtray. A heaviness settled on our household like suffocating layers of snow and Mom grew ever more withdrawn. Over the coming years, the silent treatment would become her main coping strategy, to the point where, with tears running down her face, she would deny anything was wrong.

  Dad’s sombre mood didn’t last long and in the afternoon he said that since our piano was still in storage, we could choose another instrument to learn. One block away, on Fraser Street, was a small music studio where we could take lessons. I chose the acoustic guitar and Vona chose a full-sized piano accordion with thirty-seven treble
keys and ninety-six bass keys. The monstrous squeezebox was so heavy she had to sit down to play, but being strong and already proficient on the piano, she mastered it within six months and impressed us with her finger-whizzing rendition of “Flight of the Bumble Bee.” My apprenticeship on the guitar went slower but within a few months I could strum several chords well enough to accompany myself on songs such as “If I Had a Hammer” and “500 Miles.” My performances, though, stayed between me and Caesar down in my basement bedroom. Not one to be left out, Mom found a fine bowl-backed mandolin in a pawnshop, took out a library book and taught herself to play Russian folk songs such as “Kalinka” and “Little Birch Tree.”

  Later, Dad asked about our grades and if we’d made any friends. By grade six, I’d eliminated all Ds and my marks were a mix of C-pluses and Bs. No one bothered to mention, however, that Vona and I were still regularly missing class due to chronic colds, sore throats and stomach flu. I was a short, skinny pipsqueak with shadows under my eyes and two long chestnut-brown braids drooping down my back. Vona was short too, but muscular, and had straight dark brown hair cut in a bob just below her ears. She bit her nails and suffered from persistent eczema. Neither of us had friends worth mentioning, certainly no one we brought home.

  However, we did have a new cousin whom we were anxious for Dad to meet. While he’d been away, we’d spent a lot of time over at Omi and Grandpa’s and met several members of our new extended family. We would get to know a few quite well over the coming years. Many of Grandpa’s grown children and their families were a collection of sullen, serious and boring religious devotees, people Dad referred to as “brainwashed dullards.” While they were perfectly polite, some broadcast low-level waves of resentment at our parachute entree into their family. Who were we to call their father “Dad” and their Granddad “Grandpa” and to drop into his home whenever we pleased? Uncle Johnny, Grandpa’s youngest son, and his wife, Aunt Maxine, were the exception. Kind, funny and welcoming, they treated us like family from day one. Fortunately, most of the others lived out of town.

  Cousin Ricky Nelson was also made from different matter. The only child of Auntie Ann (Grandpa’s youngest daughter) and her husband, Uncle Ken, Ricky was thrilled to have two slightly younger “sisters” in his life. His family lived in a small, square stucco house across the lane from Omi and Grandpa’s craftsman bungalow. Tall, blonde, winsome Ann was the looker in the Teichroeb family and her husband was a handsome contrasting match. Dark-eyed, dark-haired and a natural charmer, Uncle Ken worked as a Brown Bros. real estate agent. Ricky was a dreamy blend of the two. Only better. With his dark hair, dark eyes and square jaw, he could easily have doubled for his namesake, pop singer and teen idol Ricky Nelson.

  Within a month, we were spending nearly every weekend together, playing board games indoors and chase games outside, often at our house or Omi’s. Sadly, Ricky’s mom had multiple sclerosis and craved rest, peace and quiet, so we rarely played at his house. Relentlessly good-natured and easygoing, Ricky was the antidote to Vona’s and my increasingly divergent and occasionally bristly dealings. Vona craved Dad’s roughhouse play, and Ricky was someone she could tease, play practical jokes on and “fight” with. When Dad met Ricky, he liked him as much as we did and enchanted him with legends of the north and outdoor survival stories such as a city kid had never heard. Ricky’s presence lightened what was becoming an oppressive home atmosphere. He also loved being with us and especially admired Mom, whom he viewed as a cultured and exotic European lady.

  In February, Mom and Dad went to help Granny and Granddad move, this time from Revelstoke to Kimberley. Meanwhile, we stayed with Omi and Grandpa, which meant we were extremely well fed and saw Ricky nearly every day. But they were gone only a week and when they returned Dad prepared to return to the Yukon. Again. We were told this trip north would be Dad’s last. On March 1, 1965, Mom wrote in her notebook: “Gerry left to fly to Whitehorse. Another ‘Battle’—this time I hope there will be a decision!”

  Blue skies and warm weather marked the beginning of the trial but one week later the rain left puddles that turned to ice. A day later snow was falling. As Vic Wylie led the Crown witnesses through their testimony for the second time, George Strathdee sensed a change. Wylie had eliminated nine Crown witnesses—five who worked for the White Pass trucking company, three police investigators on the periphery of the case and one expert geological witness. Paring down the number of witnesses meant a speedier trial. Wylie also took a different tack in his questioning, placing more emphasis on the damning materials in the shipment—the concentrates and precipitates. As the last of the Crown witnesses’ testimonies drew near, Strathdee wrote: “The case appears to be reaching the jury in a much cleaner manner, making the Crown’s case appear stronger than before.”

  If Dad saw things that way, he wasn’t saying. A few days into the case, he wrote home, “There’s been no new evidence entered and there will be 5 or 6 fewer Crown witnesses. The lawyers feel the case is won and the Crown is just going through the motions to save face. So!! Keep your spirit’s up!! The chances are all for us!!”

  On the eve of taking the stand in his own defense, Dad expressed surprise at the shortened Crown case, which had “come to a close rather suddenly. Our standing with the jury is high and will climb from now on in. This won’t last more than 10 days at most and then I’ll be home.”

  Three days later, he was under cross-examination. “Wylie is going at me hammer and tongs—but getting nowhere,” Dad wrote. “They try to twist and turn my evidence every which way but it still comes out the same as before.”

  But Wylie’s cross-examination was calculated precisely to prompt Dad to reveal more than he’d divulged in the first trial. The more details Dad provided on precisely how he’d hauled that ore off the Moon claims the better. The more details he volunteered on the customary practices of the UKHM assay office the better too.

  The Crown’s list of rebuttal witnesses differed from the first time around too, and showed how much Wylie and the police had learned from their past mistakes. In the first trial, the prosecution had placed great importance on the testimony and credentials of expert witnesses. To counter Fawley’s testimony, for example, Wylie had called no fewer than three mineralogical experts. Yet the seemingly authoritative words of Alexander Smith, Len H. Green and Maurice Haycock, each one a PhD, had meant little to jury members, who were either not impressed or so confused they couldn’t render a verdict.

  This time round, Wylie didn’t call one geologist or mineralogist to rebut Fawley’s testimony. Instead, he kept the jury focused squarely on Dad’s story. If jury members entered their deliberations with Dad’s flawed character foremost in their minds as opposed to the conflicting statements of experts, Wylie predicted a guilty verdict was certain.

  From the moment he began at UKHM, Dad said, he was aware that valuable concentrates and precipitates brought to the assay office from the mill were later sent to the dump as rejects. He described how he had asked UKHM general manager Brodie Hicks whether he could keep these rejects and he was told yes. Later, assistant mine manager Nicholas Gritzak refused to endorse the new set of assay office instructions Dad had prepared and shown him. The instructions allegedly included a recommendation that assay rejects go back to the mill. Dad repeated what he said at the first trial: that he took Gritzak’s refusal as a tacit “yes” that he could hold onto anything delivered to the assay office.

  Then former UKHM general manager Brodie Hicks was called to the stand. By 1965, Hicks had long left the Yukon to work for Faraday Uranium Mines in Ontario. “The normal procedure with respect to assay office rejects is that they are collected from time to time… by the surface maintenance department and returned to the normal mill circuit,” Hicks testified. “I have no recollection whatsoever of having discussed the matter with Mr. Priest at any time. Should I have done so, I consider it most unlikely that I would have authorized any departure from this standard p
rocedure.”

  Next Nicholas Gritzak took the stand. Strathdee and McKiel had tracked down Gritzak in Ontario, as they had Hicks. Neither man had testified in the first trial. “I cannot recall Priest ever coming to me with a set of assay office instructions for authorization. He would have no reason to do this, since he had complete authority in the internal organization and operation of his department,” Gritzak said. “It was normal practice that the assay rejects were returned to the mill bin. However, there were no formal instructions to this effect.”

  Years later, when discussing Dad’s case with his former assay office assistant, George Duerksen, I learned that it was indeed common for concentrates and precipitates used in the assay process to simply be dumped outside. No one from the mill ever picked them up. In other words, security was shoddy at best. But shoddy or not, Dad had testified that it was “accepted practice” for him to keep the concentrates and precipitates, which it was not.

  The final two rebuttal witnesses flew to Whitehorse from Winnipeg. Neither man had testified in the first trial either. Donald Goodman worked for Bendik Industries Ltd., the company that had made Dad’s tow toboggan. Karl Robinson was president and manager of Sydney I. Robinson Ltd., the company that sold Dad his toboggan. Robinson produced receipts showing Dad’s purchase of the toboggan, along with a pair of Ojibway snowshoes and snowshoe harnesses, for a total of $146. Goodman identified the 12-foot long oak toboggan made by his shop. Because of oak’s oily surface, any fibreglass applied would “not likely remain,” Goodman said. For that reason, no toboggans made by the company had fibreglass applications. Earlier, Strathdee and McKiel, who had thoroughly inspected the toboggan, had testified that it “was little worn and showed no signs of ever being fibreglassed.”