Medicine River, originally published in 1989, is a novel by Thomas King, one of the most prolific Indigenous American writers of the 20th century. The title of the novel takes its name from the town in Alberta, Canada, where the characters live, near a Blackfoot reservation. Their stories, as told by protagonist Will, delve into themes such as Friendship and Forbearance within the frame of Life in an Alberta Blackfoot Community. As Will tells these stories, Intersections of Past and Present prevent him from moving forward with his life.

This guide is based on the 2017 Penguin Modern Classics edition of the novel.

Plot Summary

Medicine River begins with a series of letters from Will’s father to his mother, which are juxtaposed with Will’s life in the present. This intersection, which persists throughout the novel, is introduced as Will reads these letters again in his adulthood after his best friend, Harlen Bigbear, hands them to him. Will owns a photography studio named Medicine River Photography in the town of Medicine River, Alberta. It lies along the valley of the Rocky Mountains and next to a Blackfoot reservation with which its history is deeply intertwined. Will is developing photographs when Harlen brings him the old letters and photographs, which Will had first seen when he was a child. His mother caught him with them and hit him—the one and only time she ever did so. Rose, who was Blackfoot, married Will’s father, who was white, and thus lost her Native status, as well as the respect of her family. Having to leave the reservation, she moved to Medicine River. When Will was very young, his father left to be a rodeo cowboy and never returned. Will thus knew him only through his letters and photographs. When the novel opens, Will has just moved back to Medicine River after living in Toronto. He had returned once, for his mother’s funeral, but had no thought of living there again until he lost his job in Toronto, at which point he made the change and opened his own photography studio in Medicine River.

Harlen, who had encouraged him to do so and is his first customer, is also a close friend of Will’s. Harlen comes over to the studio one day with new basketball jerseys from the local Friendship Centre and tells Will he should join the team. Harlen is the new coach and throws himself fully into the position. When Will fails to play up to Harlen’s standards, he stops putting Will in the game, and Will tries to get back at Harlen by making fun of him for being a hoop dancer in high school. Harlen also pushes Will to start dating a woman named Louise Heavyman. When she becomes pregnant and is abandoned, Will steps in, first as a friend and then as a lover. Will is at the hospital when Louise gives birth, and Will jokingly names the baby daughter South Wing, after the section of the hospital where she is born. The name sticks, and Will begins to think of her as his own.

Around the same time, the husband of a woman named January dies by suicide, and Will takes January to the funeral. She reveals to him that she wrote her husband’s suicide note to protect his reputation despite the fact that he often abused her. Will recalls a neighbor in his building as a child named Mrs. Oswald, who was also beaten by her husband and whom Rose helped one day when she was badly injured.

Back in the present, a long-time rivalry between local cousins Eddie Weaselhead and Big John Yellow Rabbit erupts when Eddie throws a knife at Big John. Big John regularly insults Eddie for not being Indigenous enough, and Eddie compensates by dressing in obvious traditional garb. Harlen decides to intervene. This takes the form of an evening of feasting and playing a traditional Indigenous gambling game. When Eddie wins the game, Big John gives Eddie his tie, and Eddie gives Big John his precious bone choker.

A councilman at the Friendship Centre, Raymond Little Buffalo, seems to be stealing money from the budget. Ray gets an idea to hire Will to create a calendar of prominent Indigenous figures and sell it around the province, but when the calendars are sold, the money mysteriously disappears, and Will is never paid.

The Friendship Centre Warriors basketball team is on their way back from a yearly tournament in Utah. Harlen insists on stopping at the Little Bighorn and Custer Monument national cemeteries, but by the time they reach the latter, it is closed. Harlen finds it insensitive that the custodian won’t open the Indigenous site to them, and Will imagines crashing through the gates.

A man named Clyde Whiteman joins the basketball team. He has a record of arrests, but he is also exceptionally skilled on the court. When he is arrested before the finals for attempting to punch a police officer, both Will and Harlen go to visit him in jail. Harlen lectures Clyde about his choices, and Will tries to comfort Clyde as Clyde expresses his hopes of changing for the better.

Will and Harlen go on a journey to find a birthday present for South Wing. It takes them past the reservation to the home of a woman named Granny Oldcrow, who gives Will an authentic Indigenous rattle. This makes the journey seem worthwhile until he gets to South Wing’s party and finds that Louise got her one too. South Wing, though, is happy with both. In the spring, Will receives a letter from James, his brother, who is in New Zealand. At the same time, Harlen’s brother, Joe, comes to town to visit and convinces Harlen to climb a bridge to make up for a botched competition in their childhood. Will joins them. Joe ends up jumping in the river while Harlen and Will decide to climb down.

When an elder named Lionel James comes to Will for advice about credit cards, Harlen stops by, and the three of them relax together while Lionel tells stories of the past and folk tales about the animals of Medicine River. Will takes a portrait of Lionel. A local woman named Bertha comes to Will for photographs for a dating service she plans to join, but when Will mentions the possibility of considering Harlen instead, Bertha laughs at first but soon tries it out. The relationship doesn’t last long, and Harlen makes up for it by pushing Will to propose to Louise. Will and Louise dislike the idea of marriage and try to explain this to Harlen.

David Plume, who was present at the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation, comes into Will’s studio hoping that Will can repair a photograph that depicts him and his comrades holding rifles in defiance of the United States government during the Wounded Knee occupation in South Dakota. David treats those who refuse to become politically active as lesser people. He asks Will if anyone has ever shot at him and tries to encourage him to join a protest movement. Will declines, and David warns him that he’s wasting his life.

Later, when Harlen tells Will he should try to bring in more business to the photography studio, Will decides to offer a family portrait promotion, which draws in a woman named Joyce Blue Horn. Most of the town turns up for the photo, and a picnic is held by the river. After Will photographs the group, he puts up a copy on a wall at home, and then he finds his own family portrait, which hung on the wall when he was growing up, repairs it, and hangs it next to the photograph of what is now his town family.

When Louise decides to buy a house with a dark room, Harlen assumes that she will ask Will to move in. Louise suggests it briefly, but Will refrains from encouraging the idea, and the two go on living separately. When Louise has the dark room turned into a bathroom, Will is certain she doesn’t want them to live together. Louise invites Will to an estate sale, where he and Harlen come across an old canoe. Harlen convinces Will to buy it and fix it up, and they take it down some rapids one day. The canoe soon tips over, and both men are washed down the river at a high speed. They finish the day laughing and poking fun at their misfortune.

When David Plume is attacked and his jacket stolen and ripped, he takes revenge on his attacker, Ray Little Buffalo, by shooting at him. He misses, but Ray falls on a broken bottle and is badly injured; David is arrested. Will recalls a fight he got into with his brother as a child when he accidentally lost their ball. James became irate and threw a rock at him, and Will never apologized. When Christmas arrives, Will waits for James to call, and when he does, Will apologizes for the ball, baffling James. He goes out for a walk in the snow and looks forward to seeing Louise and South Wing when they return from their trip to Edmonton.