In the early pioneer years
of the North-West
Territories, Chief Justice
Edward L. Wetmore, Sir
Frederick W.A.G. Haultain,
former Premier of the North-
West Territories, and lawyer
Levi Thomson contributed to
the judicial, socio-
political, and economic

strata of early Western
Canadian society. These men
laid the institutional
foundation upon which early
Canadian society was built.
   The Wolseley Courthouse,
built in 1895, is a monument
to the decisions made by
these men, considered
Champions of Justice, during

the late colonial period.
The walls are a testament to
national institutions formed
in the early days of the
North-West Territories, which
covered the geographic region
of Alberta, Saskatchewan,
Yukon Territory, Nunavut, and
Northwest Territories. It
also covered northern

Manitoba, northern Ontario,
and northern Quebec.
Historians have noted that
courthouses built between
1882 and 1907 operated as an
extension of the court system
itself, which shaped and
implemented the rule of law
into a "territorial
jurisprudence [which acted]