Billy Tinker

by Harold R. Johnson

This is a gritty tale detailing the hardships faced by labourers (once known as "packsack miners") in Northern Saskatchewan mining camps. Billy Tinker offers a rare combination of realism and magic that draws out many of the contradictions and tests faced by Native Canadians and the working class.

Billy's anger and the loneliness of his itinerant lifestyle are transformed by a sweat lodge ceremony, and the "little people" through whom he renews his connection to the land and his culture.

64 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2001

About the author

Born and raised in Northern Saskatchewan, Harold Johnson has a Master of Law degree from Harvard University. He has served in the Canadian Navy, and worked in mining and logging. Johnson is the author of five novels and one work of non-fiction, which are largely set in northern Saskatchewan against a background of traditional Cree mythology. The Cast Stone (2011) won the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction.

Johnson practiced law as a Crown Prosecutor in La Ronge, Saskatchewan, and balanced that with operating his family's traditional trap line using a dog team.

Johnson died in early February, 2022.

Reviews

[Lucile Barker · Rating 5 out of 5]

148. Billy Tinker by Harold Johnson
I found this story engaging, but in parts it feels almost like a fable. Billy is a truck driver on the ice roads in the north, but when his rig goes through the spring ice, he is trapped and takes a job with a mining exploration crew. Billy’s grandfather is a shaman and asks for Billy’s assistance during a sweat lodge, which starts bringing him back to the old ways. Billy has been seeing the “little people” out of the corner of his eye. He has also been promoted on the mining team and is starting to worry about the way the exploration is being done. While I shouldn’t condone Billy’s actions, I am very sympathetic to them. This would be a good book for young male readers; enough grit to engage them, and could get great discussions going. Johnson who is Cree, practices and operates a trapline. I want to read more of him.

[Juanita · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it!