Antoine Pierre left the Whitehorse court house today a free man with a clean record and no grudge against the Yukon, although he might be forgiven for bearing one.

Pierre, 31, came to the territory with a friend of his, Ernst Barthelemy, from Montreal.

"Everyone always talked about Yukon," he recalled outside the courtroom today. "We came to see the North, to work in a new place."

The new place was Carmacks; a small community, Pierre knew, but it never occurred to him that he would experience the kind of bigotry he found there.

Some of the men at the local bar, including Eric Golstad and Bobby Gage, didn't take kindly to having a couple of good-looking, friendly new guys hanging around.

The fact the newcomers are black added fuel to the fire.

"Eric would come into the restaurant in the morning and say, 'That nigger doesn't belong here,' and 'I'm going to get rid of him,'" a former employee of the restaurant testified during the trial earlier this fall.

"They'd say things like, 'Those black bastards are trying to steal our women.'"

In the two weeks the men were there, both employed at the restaurant, they were constantly harassed by a small, but persistent, group of men.

One night, the two were accused of having teenaged girls in their room for drinks, another time of trying to steal someone's girlfriend.

Neither of those things ever happened, the court heard from Pierre and several other witnesses who watched the scenario spiral out of control.

Another employee at the bar testified he disregarded the comments and threats at first, figuring Golstad was drunk and "just blowing smoke" when he said he wanted to get a gun and shoot Pierre.

"I later changed my mind when he started threatening me and my girlfriend," the former bartender said, "because he threatened me when he was sober."

Pierre told one of his colleagues he wanted to leave the village after only a week.

"He said he may have to leave," she told the court. "He was concerned about the racism in that town."

So concerned that he carried a knife in his pocket when he went to the bar one night.

And he was right to worry.

Things reached a head on the early morning of June 5, when Gage and Barthelemy got into a fight which started with Gage punching the other man in the head.

The two fell to the ground and Pierre stepped in to help. Golstad jumped in after him and, in the ensuing melee, received three wounds - one to his chest, one to his shoulder and one to his elbow.

Barthelemy pleaded guilty to assault and served jail time.

Territorial court Justice Michael Cozens, who heard the trial, said today Pierre's intervention "was not violent," although it did result in Golstad and another man being stabbed.

The only person who said Pierre actually made a stabbing motion was Golstad. Everyone else who witnessed or was in the fight agreed the knife was out but that any injuries were delivered accidentally.

The judge exonerated the Montreal man, saying, "In effect, trouble came to Mr. Pierre."

Cozens acquitted Pierre of the two charges against him, one of aggravated assault and one of attempted murder.

The tall, handsome man dressed in a somber pinstripe suit and tie, wrapped a brightly-coloured scarf around his neck as he left the courtroom.

"I don't judge Yukon for this," he said. "I think if I had come to Whitehorse, this would not have happened."

He said he is satisfied with the result, although he will never get back the three months he spent in jail after he was arrested.

Ultimately, he said, justice was served.

"I was confident the trial would put light on the darkness."

He will not, however, stay in the territory. He has a flight booked out of here this afternoon.