Walking the Rez Road

Jim Northrup was born on the Fond du Lac Reservation in Sawyer, Minnesota on April 28, 1943. At the age of 6, he was ripped from his family and sent to a federal boarding school where speaking in Ojibwe was forbidden and the goal was for the children to become white. At the age of 18, he joined the Marine Corps which included a stint in the Caribbean during the Cuban missile crisis and an eight-month tour in Vietnam during the war. Before moving back to the reservation, he worked as a policeman and sheriff.

He was an Ojibwe storyteller. His first published work was an in anthology of Ojibwe writings entitled Touchwood. His other books included Walking the Rez Road, Rez Road Follies, Anishinaabe Syndicated: A View from the Rez, Dirty Copper, and The Rez Salute: The Real Healer Dealer. He also wrote plays, poems, and films. In 2000, he appeared in a one-man show entitled Rez Road 2000 at the Great American History Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota. He died from complications of kidney cancer on August 1, 2016 at the age of 73.

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