James Warren Northrup was an award-winning Ojibwe author, columnist, playwright, poet, performer, political commentator, and Vietnam War veteran. He wrote extensively on combat life as a marine in the Vietnam War as well as daily life on the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation.
At six years old, Northrup was sent, together with his sister, to the federally run Pipestone Indian School (Pipestone, Minnesota). It had been established as part of a movement in the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries to assimilate Native American children into mainstream Euro-American culture at boarding schools. Suffering from homesickness and physically abused by both teachers and students, Northrup tried to run away from Pipestone, making it nine miles before being caught. While forced to speak only English at school, Northrup resisted assimilation by regularly exchanging letters with his family on the reservation.
After four years in Pipestone, Northrup attended a public school in Minneapolis from fifth through seventh grades. He was then sent to the Brainerd Indian Training School, a Christian boarding school in South Dakota run by the Wesleyan Methodist Church. In 1961, Northrup became the first Native American graduate of Carlton High School in Carlton, Minnesota.
After high school, Northrup enlisted in the US Marine Corps. In 1965, he joined the Indian Company, Third Battalion, Ninth Marines for a thirteen-month tour in Vietnam, during which time he developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), then an unknown condition. After his tour ended, Northrup worked as a deputy with the Carlton County Sheriff's Office, and as a patrolman for the Waukegan Police Department in Illinois. He traveled around the country for a decade before finally returning to the reservation in 1976. Looking back on his decade away from home, Northrup believed that the trauma of war kept him from immediately returning: “I didn't want to bring the stink of war back with me.”
Upon returning to Sawyer, Minnesota, Northrup set up home in a tipi on the north side of Perch Lake, where he lived off and on for six years. In 1986, he married Patricia Dow, and the couple raised eight children together.
From 1989, Northrup wrote a syndicated column, “Fond du Lac Follies,” distributed every month in national Native American newspapers such as the Circle, the Native American Press, and News from Indian Country. “Fond du Lac Follies” was named best column at the 1999 Native American Journalists Association convention.
Northrup’s first book, Walking the Rez Road (1993), a collection of short stories and poems in English and Ojibwe, won the Midwest Book Achievement Award, the Minnesota Book Award, and the Northeastern Minnesota Book Award. Through the point of view of the fictional protagonist Luke Warmwater, Northrup reflects on the trauma of war and the quiet desperation of life on a reservation. PTSD support groups within the US Department of Veterans Affairs use some of the poems from Northrup’s book, including "Shrinking Away" and "Wahbegan," in group discussions.
His second book, The Rez Road Follies: Canoes, Casinos, Computers, and Birch Bark Baskets (1997), explores in greater depth many taboo topics, including suicides, Agent Orange, and the effect of casinos on Native life. Despite the sensitive nature of his subject matter, Northrup writes with cutting wit and dark humor.
In addition to writing several books and a successful syndicated column, Northrup also contributed to a number of anthologies, mentored Minnesota local writers, wrote several plays, and appeared in numerous films, including the 1997 award-winning video “Jim Northrup: With Reservations.” He also gave radio commentaries on the Superior Radio Network, National Public Radio, Fresh Air Radio, and the BBC Scotland.
Northrup passed away on August 1, 2016, due to complications from kidney cancer. He was seventy-three.