Finally it did come.

On Saturday the 13th October, Rankin Inlet as a community entered the television age by watching "Bugs Bunny". Home television sets were surrounded by obsessive watchers, drawing in relatives, friends and neighbours who as yet lacked sets of their own, so that reportedly "everybody" in town was watching TV "non stop" for the first week. "The streets were dead."

As it happens, reception via satellite provides a distinctively clear, sharp screen-image, and beautifully precise colour. Thus Rankin Inlet viewers were getting video superior to what is usually to be seen in southern Canada.

(Watson, 1977, p. 51)

    Television undoubtedly enjoyed a great popular success, one cannot contradict Linvill Watson on this particular point. Yet, one can wonder if Rankin inhabitants were not witnessing an event which took on a particular importance for them rather than merely "watching TV".
    By "watching TV", they were probably celebrating the medium itself rather than its message or as Harold Dwight Laswell would put it "Who said" rather than "What was said". For instance, their watching TV "non-stop" proves that they did not care what was on air. In short, a medium that was supposed to report events whether real (news items) or fictitious (movies, series...) became an event by itself. This ambivalence of television must be taken into account as a key factor in Rankin Inlet's early stages of TV experience.

    Even though the program was well received as the "ratings" prove, it is worth mentioning that it included a few peculiarities by which it contrasted with normal television service in Canada. More precisely, there were two different CBC Northern Service channels available on Anik A: one originating from Halifax, Nova Scotia (birthplace of English Canada and main economic centre of the Maritimes, an old traditional region) and the other from Vancouver, British Columbia (a young modern city, symbol of Western Canada's dynamism and prosperity). These channels were "adaptations" of the regular service broadcast either in Halifax or in Vancouver. In actual practice, the word "adaptation" meant:

- curtailment of commercials(14),

- interruptions and intervals of dead time,

- broadcasting of network syndication and contribution feeds.

    We have to bear in mind that contrary to France, there is no national television market in North America and that consequently commercials are mainly directed at local audiences. Thus, commercials broadcast on CBVT (CBC in Vancouver) will promote products and services that are available almost exclusively in Vancouver and certainly not in the Arctic. Of course, it was ludicrous to broadcast these commercials in Rankin Inlet but there was another economic reason for their curtailment: they were not paid for broadcast in the Arctic.
    Another peculiarity would remind Rankin Inlet's inhabitants that television service in the Arctic was by no means the main raison d'être of Anik A. During the afternoons, programs would be interrupted (no matter what was on air) and the transponders used for the CBC Northern Service would carry coast-to-coast syndication feeds from Toronto (national programs for taping and subsequent rebroadcast by the local stations) as well as contribution feeds ("uplink") originating from the different news production centres used during the national news produced in Toronto and broadcast on the same channel a few hours later ("downlink"). Of course, these feeds were not intended for public viewing but renting another transponder would have been too expensive.
    Sharing the transponders with the syndication feeds was the price to pay. The consequence was that most national programs could be seen twice in the Arctic, first during the syndication feeds time-slots and then in the regular programming.

    Perhaps the most embarrassing peculiarity was the discrepancy between Rankin time (Central Time) and either Halifax time (Atlantic Time) or Vancouver time (Pacific Time). For instance, a program scheduled for 12:00 would go on the air at 10:00 if the Halifax feed (CBHT) was chosen or 14:00 if the Vancouver feed (CBVT) was chosen. Everything had to be either two hours ahead or two hours late, there was no technical solution. At first, daytime programs came from Halifax and then switched to Vancouver for access prime time, prime time and evening. But this compromise did not suit everybody. On the one hand, the pro-Vancouver asked for an all-Vancouver schedule because Vancouver late movies were supposed to be better and Hockey Night featured western teams. On the other hand, Halifax partisans were mainly concerned with their children not getting enough sleep when CBVT was on, the late movie becoming a late late movie in Rankin Inlet.
    By the second week, the settlement council (equivalent to a municipal council) decided upon the all-Halifax option. However, some Vancouver partisans went straight to the nearest CBC centre in Churchill, Manitoba with a petition asking for an all-Vancouver schedule. The CBC manager in Churchill opted for this solution and the settlement council came to a compromise. As a result, during the six weeks that followed CBHT would go on air from Monday to Friday afternoon when CBVT would take over.
    Eventually, in January 1974, the all-Halifax option was chosen once again but this time, everybody agreed that there would be no more changes till a less awkward solution was made available (e.g. a Winnipeg feed).

1. Report of Royal Commission on Radio Broadcasting, King's Printer (Ottawa,1929)

2. Doug Kirkaldy, Television and the Inuit of the Northwest Territories: Living with a Cyclops-The First Ten Years, Carleton University (Ottawa, 1984) p. 13

3. CBC-SRC Canadian Broadcasting Corporation-Société Radio-Canada, Mandate, Mission, Vision, Values,Corporate Communications and Public Affairs (Ottawa, 1998)

4. CBC-SRC Canadian Broadcasting Corporation-Société Radio-Canada, A Brief History of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Audience Relations (Toronto, 1976) p. 7

5. Robert Mayes, Mass Communication and Eskimo Adaptation in the Canadian Arctic, McGill University (Montreal, 1972) p. 88

6. Paul Attalah, "Canadian Television Exports : Into the Mainstream", in John Sinclair, Elizabeth Jacka & Stuart Cunningham eds., New Patterns in Global Television, Oxford University Press, (Brisbane, 1996) p. 162

7. Gail Valaskakis, Communication Patterns: Lake Harbour, Northwest Territories, Concordia University (Montreal, 1975) p. 74

8. Charles Feaver , The Politics of the Introduction of Television to the Canadian North: A Study of the Conflicts between National Policies and Needs of the Natives People in the North, Carleton University (Ottawa, 1976) p. 11

9. William Joel Neuheimer, Indigenous Television in the Canadian North: Evolution, Operation and Impact on Cultural Preservation, Norhern Studies/University of Alaska (Fairbanks, 1994) p.30

10. Government of Canada, A Domestic Satellite Communication System for Canada: A White Paper, Queen's Printer (Ottawa, 1968) p. 8

11. Linvill Watson, Television Among Inuit of Keewatin: the Rankin Inlet Experience, Institute for Northern Studies/University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, 1977) p. 55

12. In 1986, the Hudson's Bay Company Management was forced to sell its Northern Stores Division to Northern so as to reduce its debt. This was the last existing tie to the company's fur trading history. Unlike Rankin Inlet, a great deal of northern communities had been created around a Hudson's Bay Company trading post.

13. In 1992, a referendum was passed authorizing the separation of the eastern half of the Northwest Territories to create Nunavut. On April the 1st 1999, the Canadian government handed over political control of the territory to the Tungavik Federation of Nunavut, the Inuit government. Nunavut's 16,000 Inuit residents comprise 85% of the population, making the territory, in effect, an Inuit Homeland.

14. Viewers would see a slide featuring the CBC Northern Service logo and the bilingual message "This is the Northern Television Service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation" or "Ici le Service Télévision du Nord de Radio-Canada".

< Previous Page