Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Dec 21/01) - A frozen pile of brown excrement in the white snow beneath the shadow of a man holding an axe.

A honey-bucket massacre unfolds at Fiddler's Lagoon.

With a long, sloping swing, the man buries the axe-blade into the pile's mushy centre, unleashing an explosion of jagged brown shards.

The camera sweeps away from the toxic shower.

Laughter.

Another gag on Yellowknife's very own, very new and very risque television show.

Ad-libbed, filmed, directed and produced by three guys with full-time jobs, "Dump Talk" is seven episodes into its first season on Yellowknife's Community Access Television -- shown on Channel 6 Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7:45 p.m.

The show is filmed by Jay Bulckaert 23, and Paul Gordon, 27, and hosted by Adam Bowick, 27. All three collaborate on production.

Set most of the time at the dump, the show is a series of slapstick and campy gags done on the fly and spiced up with editing tricks like slow motion and back-masking.

"All I hope is that half a dozen people laugh their asses off," said Bowick, who spends most of his camera time striking up conversations with dump visitors or smashing the windshields of mangled cars.

In one scene he interviews a small child destroying computer keyboards to extract space bars.

"Why are you trying to get the space bars?" asks Bowick, pausing between hacks at the keyboard. "Because they make spaces," answers the child.

Gordon said he hopes the show inspires people to create their own programs and spice up the community's cable channel, currently dominated by school plays and bowl-a-thons.

"It would be nice to see more stuff like this," said Gordon. "It's what the CAT channel needs to have. That's why we started this."

A reflection of the city

Gordon and Bowick came up with the idea while hanging out at the city dump this summer.

"Really we'd be doing the same stuff at the dump even if we didn't have a camera," said Gordon.

"It's a reflection of Yellowknife life. People go to the dump all the time. You can't do that in big cities. We need shows on the CAT channel that reflect life in Yellowknife better than a school-play," said Gordon.

Dump Talk is currently off most Yellowknife TV watchers' radar screens.

Local Dump Talk neophytes should tune in early New Year's morning to the CAT channel's Dump Talk marathon, featuring all seven episodes.

"It will probably start really late," said Gordon.

Bowick said he'd like to do 12 more shows and move on to another project.

The trio is planning on filming a snowmobile joust for the next show, which is due out sometime in the new year.

So after the midnight champaign haze sets, Yellowknifers can tune in to Channel 6 and check out a piece of Yellowknife culture complete with ravens, trashed cars, honey buckets, laughs and groans. It could be start the bronze age of Yellowknife television.

"And remember to dump lightly," said Bowick.