Native American author and activist Jim Northrup Jr., was an Anishinaabe and tribal member
of the Fond du Lac reservation in Sawyer, Minnesota. He was sent to a federal boarding
school at age six, a Vietnam vet, journalist, newspaper editor and columnist, poet,
playwright, novelist, writing instructor and more. He began relearning his native Ojibwe
language as an adult and started an annual camp to help teach it to others. He and his wife,
Pat, made traditional birchbark ricing baskets for chaffing wild rice they harvested from
nearby lakes and taught that as well at the camp and internationally at events and readings
they were invited to. His newspaper columns, plays, poetry and novels covered his
experiences and reflections on tribal life as well as trying his best to live authentically
as a Native American in a white world. He covered treaty rights including on spearing and
moose hunting, the rise of Native American casinos in the 1980s, the loss of cultural
identity through Bureau of Indian Affairs policies and schools, and trying to live
authentically by the seasons in sugaring, hunting and ricing, as well as living for nearly a
decade in a tipi.
