Johnston was educated in reserve schools in Cape Croker and later sent, along with his sister Marilyn, to residential school in Spanish, Ontario. He wrote about his experience as a student at St. Peter Claver School for Boys in his 1988 book Indian School Days.[3] After graduating high school as class valedictorian, he earned his B.A. with Honours from Loyola College (1954) and a high school teaching certificate from the Ontario College of Education (1962).[6] In 1959, Johnston married Lucie Desroches, with whom he had three children – Miriam, Tibby and Geoffery.[7]
Johnston taught high school at Earl Haig Secondary School in North York, Ontario, from 1962 to 1969, before taking a position in the Ethnology Department of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.[6][10] Part of his focus during his 25 years with the museum was the regeneration of the language, values and beliefs of Anishinaabe heritage.[11] He developed an extensive series of Ojibwa language courses on tape and in print, believing that traditional language education was essential to understanding Indigenous culture.[6] In the 1990 essay "One Generation From Extinction"[12] he examined the essential role Indigenous language and literature play in restoring lost "Indianness". Of the impacts of lost language he explains:
There is cause to lament but it is the native peoples who have the most cause to lament the passing of their languages. They lose not only the ability to express the simplest of daily sentiments and needs but they can no longer understand the ideas, concepts, insights, attitudes, rituals, ceremonies, institutions brought into being by their ancestors; and, having lost the power to understand, cannot sustain, enrich, or pass on their heritage. No longer will they think Indian or feel Indian.
Johnston wrote extensively in both English and Ojibwa.[6] Though he went on to publish numerous books, articles and poems, publishing companies were initially reluctant to release Johnston's work.[13] While publishers recognized the authenticity of his writing, they questioned whether there was a market for it. His first book Ojibway Heritage was published in 1976 thanks to the support of Jack McClelland and Anna Porter of McClelland & Stewart. In 1978 Porter proved equally instrumental, fighting for the publication of Johnston's second book, Moose Meat and Wild Rice, after a McClelland & Stewart editor suggested the publisher pass on the title, in part, because stories of its kind were "currently passé."[7] The book, which was nominated for a Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, comprised 22 fictional short-stories and offered satirical comment about the relationship between Indigenous peoples, government officials and the nature of acculturation.[14]
North American Indians: outline. Indian-Eskimo Association of Canada (Toronto: 1971).
Ojibway heritage. New York: Columbia University Press. 1976. ISBN0231041683.
Canada: Discovering Our Heritage. Pearson Custom Publishing (Boston: 1977). By David Smith, Chris Andreae, Basil Johnston, E. Mitchner and Ann MacKenzie.
Brève histoire du Collège Saint-Alexandre. Collège Saint-Alexandre (Touraine: 1981).
Grosser Weisser Falke : der Lebenskreis eines Ojibwa. Eugen Diederichs Verlag (Köln: 1982).
Und Manitu erschuf die Welt : Mythen und Visionen der Ojibwa. Diederichs (München: 1984).
Nanabusch und Grosser Geist : Geschichten der Odschibwä Indianer (Kanada). Verlag St. Gabriel (Mödling-Wien: 1985). By Basil Johnston; Shirley Cheechoo; Käthe Recheis.
By Canoe & Moccasin: Some Native Place Names of the Great Lakes. Waapoone Publishing and Promotion (Lakefield: 1986). Illustrated by David Beyer.
Indian School Days. Toronto: University of Oklahoma Press. 1988. ISBN9780806126104.
"One Generation from Extinction" in Native Writers and Canadian Literature. University of British Columbia Press (Vancouver: 1990).
Hudson Bay Watershed: a photographic memoir of the Ojibway, Cree, and Oji-Cree. Dundurn Press (Toronto: 1991). By John MacFie and Basil H. Johnston.
Hudson Bay portraits: native peoples of the Hudson Bay watershed. Dundurn Press (Toronto: 1992). By John Macfie and Basil Johnston.
Tales of the Anishinaubaek. Royal Ontario Museum. 1993. With Maxine Noel and the Royal Ontario Museum.
The Manitous : the spiritual world of the Ojibway (1. ed.). New York, NY: HarperCollins. 1995. ISBN0060171995.
The bear-walker and other stories. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum. 1995. ISBN0888544154. Illustrated by David Johnson.
Readings: selections from HarperCollins Spring/Summer 1995 nonfiction list. HarperCollins Publishers (New York: 1995). By Annie Dillard; Basil Johnston; Ellis Cose; Philip Langdon; Emma Donoghue; Lawrence Graham; Paul Solotaroff; Eleanor Anne Lanahan; HarperCollins (Firm)
American film stories. P. Reclam (Stuttgart: 1996). By Reingard M. Nischik; Sam Shepard; Basil Johnston; Tom Clark; Richard Brautigan; Jayne Anne Phillips; T Coraghessan Boyle; Ray Bradbury; William Saroyan; Charles Johnson
The Man, the Snake and the Fox. National Film Board of Canada (Montreal: 1978). Directed and produced by Tony Snowsill, written by Basil Johnston.
Native Indian folklore. National Film Board of Canada (Montreal: 1993). By Alanis Obomsawin; Wolf Koenig; Brian McLeod; Tony Westman; Tony Snowsill; Basil Johnston; Les Krizson; Francois Hartman; Eunice Macaulay; Tex Kong; National Film Board of Canada.
^Fitzgerald, Judith (16 July 1983). "Johnston avoids Indian stereotypes: An Ojibway writes about his own". Toronto: The Globe & Mail. ProQuest1238650711.
^Johnston, Basil H. (1990). "One Generation from Extinction". In New, William H. (ed.). Native writers and Canadian writing Canadian literature special issue (Special issue, reprinted. ed.). Vancouver [B.C.]: UBC Press. ISBN0774803703.
