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.
About the Author
HAROLD R. JOHNSON was the author of six works of fiction and five works of non-fiction. Born in northern Saskatchewan to a Swedish father and a Cree mother, Harold was a member of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation. He enlisted in the Canadian Navy and worked as a logger, trapper, and miner before going to university as an adult, eventually graduating from Harvard Law School. It was there where, in addition to his studies, he wrote his first novel, Billy Tinker, which was published by Thistledown Press in 2001. His novel Corvus (2011) won the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction and was longlisted for Canada Reads in 2019. Harold managed a private practice for several years before becoming a Crown prosecutor, but had retired from the practice of law to write full time.
