FB02 – My Reads… Firewater by Harold Johnson
Today, I recommend a rare type of book that addresses one of the most pressing social problems in our province: our many dysfunctional Aboriginal families and communities.
Harold R. Johnson (2016), Firewater: How Alcohol is Killing My People (and Yours). University of Regina Press.
Johnson is imminently qualified to understand the problems and passionately confront the community directly. He is a Cree lawyer, a crown prosecutor, and is Harvard educated. He explores the issues as he shares his knowledge of the culture, its stories, and its history.
Although I personally have had many opportunities to learn of Aboriginal life and its history (we have six Treaty Indians in our family as a result of our choice to adopt a daughter forty-five years ago), every page of this book yields fascinating new insights into northern Saskatchewan Cree culture and its problems with alcohol.
Johnson claims:
- Directly, and indirectly, 50% of Aboriginal people in this province will die of alcohol-related causes.
- About 95% of the crimes that appear before the courts are committed while individuals were intoxicated.
- Nevertheless, 35% of Indians in this province do not drink at all, making the proportion of alcohol drinkers in the Aboriginal community lower than that in the general population.
- When Treaty 6 was negotiated between its Cree elders and the Crown in 1876, all reserves were to be alcohol free.
See publisher’s description of book and its author:
https://uofrpress.ca/Books/F/Firewater
Cost at Amazon.ca: $16.78 (paperback) or $8.69 (Kindle).
First published on Facebook Page (My Reads and Views):
https://www.facebook.com/RonInRegina/posts/134539598414933
First published here: 2021/02/19
Latest revision: 2022/06/04