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The Word On The Street has been renowned for the quality and diversity of its event programming and our 2025 festival promises to offer the best so far. Check out our schedule for Saturday, September 20, 2025!
Rough & Messy Justice brings to life the Rocky Mountains’ Crowsnest Pass of 1920, a place of rugged geography, a mining economy, and diverse culture. Against this backdrop, an armed robbery of a CPR train leads to a dramatic shootout at the Bellevue Café between police officers and two of the three Russians bandits, recently arrived from the mines of Butte, Montana. The book meticulously details the crime, the shootout, and the thrilling manhunt for the escaped bandit.
The story continues with an account of the trial and its flawed application of the law, revealing overt racism in the press and police correspondence, a law enforcement coverup, a biased judge and jury, a lackluster defence counsel, and confused trial witnesses. These elements contribute to the tragic hanging of an innocent man.
Rough & Messy Justice critically examines social and racial prejudice, law enforcement misconduct, and judicial incompetence, exposing a wrongful conviction that challenges traditional assumptions about equality under the law.
W. Keith Regular PhD. Keith Regular holds a Master of Arts in History from the University of Calgary and a PhD from Memorial University of Newfoundland. Specializing in modern Indigenous and non-Indigenous social and economic relationships, his current research focuses on legal history and the dispensing of justice in the early 20th-century Canadian West, particularly in the Crowsnest Pass. He is also author of the book Neighbours and Networks: The Blood Tribe in the Southern Alberta Economy. Keith lives in Cranbrook. B.C.
