Transcripts

DAN GUNDERSON: It's been a whirlwind couple of months for Betsy McDougall. She's coordinating efforts to get a radio station on the air on the White Earth Reservation.

BETSY MCDOUGALL: We had to construct two broadcast rooms.

DAN GUNDERSON: As she walks into a small studio space in an old school building in Callaway, she recalls with a laugh the day she realized just how much local residents care about the new radio station. She says, a man showed up with his own can of paint and went to work.

BETSY MCDOUGALL: He had this thing green in minutes. At that point, we started to think, this is going to be the green room.

DAN GUNDERSON: McDougall says she's been overwhelmed with volunteers who want to help with the new station and by the response to her first email fundraising effort.

BETSY MCDOUGALL: We got a $20,000 check in the mail from that little email I sent out, and I was just-- I thought to myself, these people really care about community radio. And there was a lot of checks that came in that mattered, $5 checks, $10 checks.

DAN GUNDERSON: The White Earth station is on the air, but studios are still under construction. New stations are also on the air in Nett Lake, Cloquet, and Cass Lake.

SPEAKER 1: You're listening to KOGB, 90.1 FM, The Eagle. Cass Lake, a service of the Leach Lake Band of Ojibwe.

DAN GUNDERSON: These stations all benefited from a new FCC policy that gives tribal entities priority for radio frequencies that cover tribal lands. Three of the stations are licensed to tribal governments and financially supported by the tribes. The White Earth station is licensed to the White Earth Land Recovery Project and is a non-profit organization. White Earth Land Recovery Project founder, Winona LaDuke, says the stations will raise the profile of American Indians in Northern Minnesota.

WINONA LADUKE: Between here and Duluth, you can hear Indian Radio all the way across, and that's going to be pretty darn cool. So you can drive on Highway 2 and just listen to Ojibwes.

DAN GUNDERSON: The music ranges from traditional powwow songs to techno and pop. The stations will also carry some national American Indian programming, and they say they'll cover local news and events. But the stations all plan to highlight traditional customs and Ojibwe language, like this locally-produced on-air language class that aired recently on the Nett Lake Station.

SPEAKER 2: [SPEAKING ANISHINAABEMOWIN]

DAN GUNDERSON: Volunteers will produce a lot of the programming. Loris Ann Taylor says it's typical of tribal stations to run on volunteers and a shoestring budget. Taylor is President and CEO of Native Public Media, a network of 45 tribal radio stations across the country. She says tribal radio stations are a critical information source for people who often don't have access to broadband internet or even basic phone service. She says the stations are all very focused on their local tribal audience.

LORIS ANN TAYLOR: They come from different angles. There's not one single template. And all the stations will have different needs. And it all depends on what's happening locally and on the ground.

DAN GUNDERSON: Winona LaDuke says it will take a little time to develop local programming, but she sees a huge appetite for Indian radio, both on the reservation, and from people living in the Twin Cities and listening to the webstream.

WINONA LADUKE: The people of White Earth are eager to hear our issues, our voices, our language, just hear us because we are not-- we've been the object of other reporters, but we have not had a voice unto ourselves. So that's what I'm excited about.

DAN GUNDERSON: LaDuke says that voice will be used to educate and inform tribal members and non-Indians. She also hopes the stations will influence local and state politics.

WINONA LADUKE: Because I think that a chunk of the problems that we face in the north are because of an ignorance that exists in the non-Indian population. If you don't know who we are and why we're different, then you are not really able to make informed political decisions if you're a county commissioner because you don't even know who we are.

DAN GUNDERSON: The four new stations all plan to spend the next several months working out technical bugs and training volunteers, who will handle most of the daily broadcast duties. Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio News, Callaway.