Tomson Highway is one of Canada's most renowned storytellers. As a celebrated author, playwright, and musician, his work shines a light on Indigenous people and culture. His plays, The Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, are performed around the world. His memoir, Permanent Astonishment, won the 2021 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. In 2022, he received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement.
Highway is also an Officer of the Order of Canada and in 1998, Maclean's magazine named him one of the "100 most important people in Canadian history."