Jim Northrup, at 73; veteran who wrote about life on the reservation .
By Sam Roberts New York Times . NEW YORK - Jim Northrup began his
writing career by necessity: Sent to a government boarding school as a
6-year-old American Indian boy, he resisted assimilation by regularly
exchanging letters with his family on the Minnesota reservation that
would become his home again. Mr. Northrup, who died on Monday at 73 in
Sawyer, Minn., was a published author, columnist, playwright, poet,
performer, and commentator with appeal beyond Indian country, his books
winning state and regional awards. His narratives about combat as a
Marine in Vietnam and his insular life on the reservation, woven
together like the traditional birch-bark baskets he made with his wife,
Pat, might be heartbreaking or ribald but were typically leavened by
his dry wit. He delivered his narratives, in English and Ojibwe, as a
palliative. He hoped to heal troubled souls - poetically evoking his
traumatic Vietnam experiences to fellow veterans, and reminding
impoverished Indians of their heritage as Anishinaabe people. He died
from complications of cancer, his son Matthew said. Mr. Northrup never
planned to write professionally, but when he returned to the
reservation in 1977, "people came to visit me because living in a tepee
was such a novelty," he told The Pioneer Press of St. Paul. "When they
came, we tried to top each other with stories," he said, coming to
think of the results as real short stories. James Warren Northrup Jr.
was born on April 28, 1943, on the reservation, west of Duluth, Minn.,
where the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa lived under
federal auspices. His father, James, was a truck driver and logger. His
mother was the former Alice Shabiash. As a child, Mr. Northrup was sent
to the federal boarding school in Pipestone, Minn., where children were
forbidden to speak their native language. He was transferred to a
school run by Methodists in South Dakota, then to a reform school
(after he stole a car), and finally to a public high school in Carlton,
Minn. He served in the Marines in Vietnam before becoming a deputy
sheriff and police officer in the Upper Midwest. After moving back to
the reservation, he got a construction job before becoming a successful
storyteller. In 1989, he started a syndicated column in Indian
newspapers, offering sardonic observations about the changes wrought by
casinos, a tribal college, and other innovations. Mr. Northrup's
one-man show was produced in 2000 in St. Paul. His books included
"Walking the Rez Road" (1993) and "Rez Road Follies: Canoes, Casinos,
Computers and Birch Bark Baskets" (1997). In addition to his son
Matthew, he leaves his wife, the former Patricia Dow; their other sons,
James, Joseph, Aaron, Tony, and Calvin; their daughters, Heather and
Lorna; four sisters; and three brothers.
