Harold R. Johnson

Harold R. Johnson (August 30, 1954 – February 9, 2022)^[1] was a Canadian indigenous lawyer and writer, whose book Firewater: How Alcohol Is Killing My People (And Yours) was a shortlisted nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction at the 2016 Governor General's Awards.^[2] The book, an examination of the problem with alcohol consumption among Canadian First Nations, draws on Johnson's work as a Crown prosecutor in northern Saskatchewan.^[3]

Harold R. Johnson
Born	(1954-08-30)August 30, 1954 Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada
Died	February 9, 2022(2022-02-09) (aged 67) Mount Forest, Ontario
Occupation	Lawyer, writer
Notable works	Firewater: How Alcohol Is Killing My People (And Yours) (2016) Peace and Good Order: The Case for Indigenous Justice in Canada (2019) The Power of Story: On Truth, the Trickster, and New Fictions for a New Era (2022)

Johnson told CBC Radio interviewer Shelagh Rogers in 2016 that his father was a Swedish immigrant and his mother a Cree woman in Saskatchewan, where he was born. He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy and worked as a logger, trapper and miner before going to university as an adult, completing his education in law with an MA at Harvard.^[4] He was a member of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation.^[5]

After being diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer, Johnson died on February 9, 2022, at the age of 67.^[6] His twelfth and final book, The Power of Story was released posthumously in October 2022.

Daniel Grenier received a Governor General's Award nomination for English to French translation at the 2024 Governor General's Awards, for his translation of Johnson's Charlie Muskrat.^[7]

Bibliography

Fiction

• Billy Tinker, Saskatoon, Sask.: Thistledown Press, 2001.
• Back Track, Saskatoon, Sask.: Thistledown Press, 2005.
• Charlie Muskrat, Saskatoon, Sask.: Thistledown Press, 2008.
• The Cast Stone, Saskatoon, Sask.: Thistledown Press, 2011.
• Corvus, Saskatoon, Sask.: Thistledown Press, 2015.
• The Björkan Sagas, Toronto: Anansi, 2021.

Nonfiction

• Two Families: Treaties and Government, Saskatoon, Sask.: Purich Publishing, 2007.
• Firewater: How Alcohol is Killing My People (and Yours), Regina, Sask.: Univ of Regina Press, 2016.
• Clifford: a Memoir, a Fiction, a Fantasy, a Thought Experiment, Toronto: Anansi, 2018.
• Peace and Good Order: The Case for Indigenous Justice in Canada, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2019.
• Cry Wolf: Inquest into the True Nature of a Predator,^[8] Regina, Sask.: Univ of Regina Press, 2020.
• The Power of Story: On Truth, the Trickster, and New Fictions for a New Era, Windsor, Ont.: Biblioasis, 2022.