The Globe and Mail has a big article on Tomson Highway. Born in 1951, he is a national icon - playwright, novelist and musician and celebrated for works like “the Rez Sisters and Kiss of the Fur Queen. He was one of 12 children in northwestern Manitoba where his parents were caribou hunters. It says his father was a legendary caribou hunter and world championship dogsled racer and his mother a renowned artist in beadwork and quilt-making. He was sent to residential school. Somehow he attended the University of Manitoba, and then Western University, where he studied music and English literature, and worked with playwright James Reaney. He graduated in 1975 and 1976 with degrees in music and literature. Might I have encountered Tomson Highway in the English Department where I took a course in 1974/75? It makes one wonder, don’t you think?
But my curiosity is how he was able to do this financially as one of many children in an Indigenous family. It seemed there would be many challenges and barriers. He got a library technician diploma from Fanshawe in 1973 and was able to support himself through this work. He credits his father as inspiring him to go to university - his father regretting that he was able to.
My first question was how he came by his first name - Tomson. Isn’t it a different sort of spelling! The story goes that his father, Joe Highway, lived in Northern Canada with Scandinavian trappers/hermits. They had names ending in “son” like Larson, Johnson, and Peterson. Joe used that naming tradition. Tomson’s older brother was named Swanson, and he was named Tomson. Highway himself speculated that the surname of Highway may have Irish roots when he noticed similar names in England.
Just having the surname Highway seems magical to me, as there are so many associations, myths to create for a name like that.
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