In new memoir, Tomson Highway reveals the secret to his 'utterly positive spirit' — his parents
CBC Radio | November 12, 2021
Categories: news
Permanent Astonishment won the 2021 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction
Tomson Highway celebrates his astonishing life in his new memoir, Permanent Astonishment, which centres on his childhood growing up in sub-Arctic Canada and his parents' beautiful love.
Permanent Astonishment, the first of five planned books, chronicles the first 15 years of this Cree son of world-champion dogsled racer Joe Highway and Balazee Highway, an accomplished beader, lapwachin maker and mother to her dozen children.
It won the $60,000 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
Rosanna Deerchild, host of CBC's Unreserved, sat down for an intimate and joyful conversation with this master storyteller.
You've described [your parent's marriage] as the kind of marriage you could only dream of in Hollywood. Can you tell me about Joe and Balazee Highway?
They were married for 60 years. It was 60 years of love and beautiful, beautiful love. Theirs was the best marriage I've ever seen in my life, bar none.
[My father] was an extraordinary man. My mother was an extraordinary woman. They were funny. They were wise, they were kind and they were strong. And the thing about having 12 children or 14 children is that you make all your mistakes as a parent with the first two or three or four. But by the time you get to the 11th and the 12th, you have your parenting skills down to a fine art, right. So my younger brother and I, Rene and I, the youngest of the family, we had the best, we got the best of it. So we were raised like little princes of the North. And that's how we lived.
