Former 黑料吃瓜网 Iqaluit bureau chief Kathleen Lippa arrived in Nunavut's capital in spring of 2003. Over 20 years later, she is finally publishing her book, Arctic Predator: The Crimes of Edward Horne Against Children in Canada's North, in February 2025 through Dundurn Press.
“I was in the communities... I was in all kinds of communities... the first time I ever heard about Ed Horne was in a story by my colleague,” explains Lippa. “It was a smallish story in the newspaper, in News/North. Suddenly the hair just stood up on my arms. I just had a feeling.
“It was about a teacher — he had molested boys in this old school portable. So the community had dragged this portable to the metal dump in Cape Dorset [Kinngait] and set it on fire to cleanse the memory of Ed Horne.
“I was curious... about what happened here. I quickly warmed to the Arctic, and Arctic matters, and my Inuit contacts, some of whom became friends. They told me stories about Ed Horne. So there had been outsiders that had come to the Arctic and done bad things. But Ed Horne had become sort of mythologized in the Eastern Arctic. The way Inuit talked about him drew me in right away.
“I wanted to know more, and as I started to look into, well, who was Ed Horne? What happened here? How many victims were there? People didn’t even know the simple answers to questions... So I started digging in to find out, and that’s where it started to snowball because we, as journalists, wanted to know more.
“I could see the impact his crimes had had, especially in Cape Dorset... it means you have guys that are angry.”
As an example, Timothy Aipeelee was recently convicted in Iqaluit in May 2024 for sexual assault and sentenced to seven years in prison. In handing down the sentence, Justice Paul Bychok noted a long history of criminal charges relating to sexual assault, and that Aipeelee had been taught by Horne in Kinngait, where Aipeelee subsequently dropped out of school and turned to crime at age 14.
“It took a really long time [to write the book],” says Lippa. “I just couldn’t let it go, this particular story. I just had to know because I loved it so much, living in the North.”
“There was talk [among journalists] about was there a cover-up? Who knew what, when, about Ed Horne’s activities?’... Was he moved intentionally from community to community? I talk about that all in the book... I was looking for... how did government officials try and cover their mistakes? And the big thing was there was a broad sealing order... if I wanted to know clarity, for details, I had to hire a lawyer.
“I think there were a lot of mistakes made by government officials. Many of them spoke to me on the record... and finally talk about mistakes that were made at the time... and that was very important to me to get this story as much on the record as much as I could.”
The broader conclusions Lippa draws were about the vulnerability of isolated communities that a “devious criminal” like Horne could exploit extensively between 1971-1985 as a teacher and principal. During that period, Horne taught in Sanikiluaq, Cape Dorset, Grise Fiord, Iqaluit, Kimmirut and Apex.
“I think that he had a tremendous amount of power and control at the time... in small Inuit communities where there were no roads and air service," said Lippa. "People who were in positions of power [needed] better oversight. Back then, Ed Horne was trusted implicitly with the care of children... People going in to work in isolated Inuit communities, there needs to be better oversight. Because Ed Horne was a pedophile drawn to places... where he could get away with molesting and raping children for years. That’s what he did. We’re dealing with an entire generation of men who are being severely impacted by childhood sexual abuse... there’s reasons why people are angry. I think a story like Arctic Predator shows you why.”
Lippa further explains that she interviewed Horne in Toronto in June 2012 with most of the book having already been written by that time.
“When I did, I was able to learn a lot more, and get a better sense of him as a man and as a criminal... I would make the claim... from what I can gather, was that he was drawn to places that had small Indigenous populations... where he knew he would most likely get away with overpowering and abusing children. That’s what he did the whole time he was in the Eastern Arctic,” she said.
Horne served two prison terms after two criminal cases to which he pleaded guilty, and was acquitted in a third in 2008 — from that point he was a free man. He then moved to Toronto and became a bicycle courier, a job he had at age 78 when Lippa interviewed him.
“I think he feels that he’s served his time... I found it challenging to meet with him because I’m disgusted by his crimes. He is, in my opinion, one of the worst criminal pedophiles in Canadian history.”
For someone who’s been working on this case for two decades, Lippa is of the opinion that “what he agreed to [in court] is much less that what the victims had told policemen or social workers.”
“I think, initially, I think he probably thought that he could change the narrative," she suggests. "He’s going to do the best that he can... he has a very high IQ, and he’s a very intelligent man — that’s well documented. He’s a master manipulator... but there’s only so much that he can control."
