In Lisa Bird-Wilson's novel Probably Ruby, a chapter set in Ruby's teenage years features references to the real-life 1991 murder of a 43-year-old Cree man, Leo LaChance, by a self-proclaimed white supremacist and member of the Ku Klux Klan named Carney Milton Nerland. LaChance was killed in a Prince Albert, Saskatchewan pawn/gun shop on the evening of January 28th. He was attempting to sell some fur pelts, and after discovering that the shop of the fur trader he usually did business with was closed, he went next door to the pawn shop, which was owned by Nerland. It's not clear what exactly transpired in the pawn shop, but investigators believe Nerland fired a gun into the floor two times and then shot Leo LaChance as he was leaving. A witness saw LaChance stumble out of the store and called the police.
Then-constable Troy Cooper was one of the first officers on the scene, and he reported that LaChance said that he had been shot by "white guys" and that he thought the gun had gone ...