For the members of any hunting culture, flexibility and adaptation…the
ability to respond quickly to changes in the geographic or cultural
environment…is a key to survival. The history of the Inuit Broadcasting
Corporation is a dramatic illustration of one such adaptation, and exemplifies
both the capacity for creative change that is part of the Inuit heritage,
and the challenge faced by aboriginal people in the new millennium as
they attempt to maintain and promote their languages and cultures.
In the 1970’s it was clear to the Inuit leadership that television,
with its capacity to flood every living room in the arctic with images
from the consumer-driven south, represented a unique and potentially
devastating threat to a culture already reeling from the impact of trade,
education and religion. When CBC introduced its Accelerated Coverage
Plan (ACP) in 1975, reaction from the Inuit community was swift and
sharp. The ACP proposed to provide CBC television programming to all
communities in Canada with populations of over 500. Since the objective
of the ACP was to make “Canadian” programming…that
is, a mixture of southern Canadian and American…available to all,
no consideration was given to local access, to programming in aboriginal
languages, or to a community’s right to control the local airwaves.
Programming depicting southern attitudes, values and behaviors proliferated
in the North throughout the mid-seventies. Inuit and community leaders
were quick to realize that this electronic tidal wave of alien images
and information would lead to the deterioration of Inuit language and
culture, and could disrupt the structures of traditional community life.
Inuit have successfully adapted to technological innovation several
times throughout their history. Neither firearms nor snowmobiles are
indigenous to the North, but both have become central elements of contemporary
Inuit hunting culture. It was clear that television in the North was
not going away; the challenge for Inuit was to find a way of adapting
this technology to their own ends, using television as a vehicle for
the protection of their language rather than as an agent of its destruction.
The Inuit Broadcasting Corporation was created from the Inukshuk Project
– a federally sponsored experiment in the late 1970’s. Rudimentary
television production facilities were installed in 6 northern communities,
and teams of newly recruited Inuit trainees began to learn the fundamentals
of TV production. In 1980 the Inukshuk Project began broadcasting via
the Anik B satellite from Iqaluit. The Inukshuk Project lasted eight
months during which time broadcasting and teleconferencing, allowed
Inuit in the NWT to see each other, discuss important issues and exchange
information in our own language. The project also demonstrated that
Inuit could successfully manage complex broadcasting projects and adapt
sophisticated communications technology to meet their needs. In 1981,
the CRTC granted a network television license to the Inuit Tapirisat
of Canada, and the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation was formed. After
an initial period of production and consolidation, IBC aired its first
program on January 11, 1982, at midnight, a ninety-minute special introducing
the new network. IBC was dependent on access to timeslots designated
by the CBC Northern Service. By the end of that year, IBC proposed the
creation of a dedicated northern TV channel. A consortium was formed
consisting of 6 aboriginal broadcasters, the NWT and Yukon governments,
the National Aboriginal Communications Society and the CBC Northern
Service. On January 1992, Television Northern Canada was launched –
a truly northern pan-arctic channel. In June 1997 the TVNC Board of
Directors voted to move forward towards the establishment of a national
aboriginal television network. On September 1, 1999, the Aboriginal
People’s Television Network signed on.
