The Sissons-Morrow collection started with R. vs. Kaotak, a carving that depicts how the accused, left, felt as he faced Justice John Sissons at trial. Sissons received the carving in 1956 after Kaotak was found not guilty of murder. (CBC)Unique Inuit carvings that depict some of the earliest court cases in Canada's North have been locked away for over a decade, for lack of a safe place to display them.

The Sissons-Morrow collection's 20 carvings show — sometimes in graphic detail — significant criminal and constitutional legal cases through the 1950s and '60s in the Northwest Territories and what is now Nunavut.

The collection was deeded in trust to the N.W.T. Supreme Court's senior judge in 1969 and put on display at the Yellowknife courthouse.

But in 1999, the display case the works were in was broken into twice and five carvings were stolen.

The sculptures have since been kept in cardboard boxes in a locked storage room, much to the dismay of Justice John Vertes, the current senior judge.

"I think the sculptures are historically important because they depict scenes from the earliest cases of the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories," Vertes told CBC News in an interview.

"In many ways, these cases are some of the earliest encounters of the indigenous people in the Northwest Territories with the Canadian justice system."

Judges collected art

This carving, from the trial R. v. Kikkik, depicts the accused person stabbing her brother-in-law after he had shot her husband. Kikkik was found not guilty of murder in 1958. (CBC)The Sissons-Morrow collection was started by Justice John (Jack) Howard Sissons, the N.W.T. Supreme Court's first judge. In 1956, Sissons received a carving from Kaotak, a young man found not guilty of killing his father on the sea ice in the Queen Maud Gulf.

That first carving, R. v. Kaotak, shows the judge towering over the accused at the trial.

After that, Sissons commissioned Inuit carvers to craft carvings related to noteworthy court cases that he had presided over. His successor, Justice William Morrow, added three carvings to the collection before Sissons' death in 1969.

Vertes said he is not happy that the collection is locked away and he is talking with the N.W.T. government about finding a solution.

"I'm optimistic that in the near future, we will be able to sort out this issue and possibly install, once again, a safe and secure display for this collection in the current courthouse," he said.

May have to wait

However, Vertes said there are no definite plans yet and the public may have to wait for a new courthouse to be built before the collection comes out again.

Various groups, including the territory's legal community, have called for the carvings to be properly displayed.

"It's good to hear that they're in a safe place, but unfortunately a safe place is not a place where people can enjoy them," said Austin Marshall, a senior lawyer in Yellowknife.

Dene National Chief Bill Erasmus, who studied anthropology as a graduate student, agreed that the Sissons-Morrow collection should come out of storage.

"I would encourage that the appropriate parties get together and come up with some sort of arrangement that makes sense to everyone. … The sooner you could do it, the better," he said.