Alongside the challenges of mainstream media, Indigenous people continued to create their own stories and media. Sometimes this involved using new tools and technologies.
In the 1950s, the federal government established a network of radar and microwave radio stations in remote and northern territories. At that time, Indigenous peoples began working with CBC Northern Services to incorporate Indigenous-language programming on a local and regional basis. CBC was available in many Inuit communities as early as 1958. Listeners phoned in to join on-air conversations in Inuktitut. Since radio only required cheap, easy to use equipment, communities could produce their own content.
By the 1970s, several communities set up their own FM radio stations. For example the Wawatay Native Communications Society in Northern Ontario and CKLB in Yellowknife. ADD MATERIAL ON CKLB, Les Carpenter, Leanne Goose and Digital Traplines.
Website: Wawatay Native Communications Society, “About Us”
In 2019, Monique Manatch developed a report on the stake of Indigenous Radio in Canada. This ADD.
EXPAND — MA student Julia Szwarc looked at the CRTC’s archival history of working with Indigenous broadcasting in order to gain an understanding of the current state of the sector in her paper Indigenous Broadcasting and the CRTC: Lessons from the Licensing of Native Type B Radio.
Manatch, M. (2019). Spoken from the Heart: Indigenous Radio in Canada. UNESCO: Ottawa.