Shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction, 2016 Shortlisted for the Saskatchewan Book Awards Ministry of Parks, Culture and Sport Publishing Award, 2017 Shortlisted for the Saskatchewan Book Awards Non-fiction Award, 2017 A passionate call to action, Firewater examines alcohol–its history, the myths surrounding it, and its devastating impact on Indigenous people. Drawing on his years of experience as a Crown Prosecutor in Treaty 6 territory, Harold Johnson challenges readers to change the story we tell ourselves about the drink that goes by many names–booze, hooch, spirits, sauce, and the evocative firewater.
Confronting the harmful stereotype of the lazy, drunken Indian, and rejecting medical, social, and psychological explanations of the roots of alcoholism, Johnson cries out for solutions, not diagnoses, and shows how alcohol continues to kill so many. Provocative, irreverent, and keenly aware of the power of stories, Firewater calls for people to make decisions about their communities and their lives on their own terms.