Fine Day was born of Cree parents in Saskatchewan's Battle River area. He became a highly skilled warrior and shaman. Eventually he rose to war chief of the Poundmaker Cree band.

At the time of the Northwest Resistance in 1885, some of Poundmaker's followers looted the town of Battleford, Saskatchewan. Realizing the Canadians were going to retaliate, the band's warriors erected a war lodge and turned to Fine Day for leadership. Fine Day moved the camp to Cut Knife Hill.

On May 2, at dawn, Lieutenant Colonel Otter and 350 Canadian soldiers attacked the Cree village at Cut Knife Hill. Fine Day's warriors charged the Canadians from so many different directions at once that Otter was fooled into believing they numbered 500, when they were barely 50. Otter ordered a hasty retreat. Fine Day wanted to pursue the fleeing Canadians; Poundmaker talked him out of it. When the Northwest natives' resistance collapsed, Fine Day went to live with the Sweetgrass Cree Band in the Battleford area. In time, he became chief of the band.

In 1934, when Fine Day was 84, American anthropologist David Mandelbaum wrote down his recollections. Some of these were published in 1973 in a booklet called My Cree People. Fine Day's recollections are a valuable first-hand account of 19th- and early-20th-century Plains Cree life.