Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

Fort Smith (Nov 15/99) - Thanks to an internship offered by the Women's Television Network, Fort Smith native Veronica McNeil has returned home to take the job of her dreams.

McNeil, a single mom with a 12-year-old daughter, is Metis, born and raised in Fort Smith. For the last nine years she's worked as a computer technician and a systems analyst in Yellowknife.

Faced with the decision of accepting a layoff or keeping her job, McNeil, whose great passion is music, chose to return to school.

For eight months she attended a technical institute in Calgary, studying electronics engineering, until she realized this was not the field for her.

"It was just way too technical for me. It was a school filled with white collars, ties and pocket protectors... in computer labs. It just wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life."

But while working on an English assignment about songwriting, she discovered Trebas -- a private school in Vancouver that offered a course in audio engineering.

She decided to merge her computer background and passion for music.

"There was a lot of computer stuff, there was a lot of maintenance technical stuff to do -- it's amazing how much they cram into your head in nine months," she laughs.

It was at Trebas that she learned of the WTN Internship. As fate would have it, it so happens that there's a recording studio in Fort Smith. Owned and operated by Bill Wade, Shadowland Records (a division of Dome Productions) has been around since 1993. McNeil approached Wade and together they applied to WTN.

"The internship is for women who are in a technical field like television or audio, who have just finished school, and are looking to get a job in their field," explains McNeil.

There were two internships for the entire North and McNeil was approved for one. She started work with Wade at Shadowland Oct. 1.

"I assist in audio engineering, which includes all the recording, mixing and mastering. I'm doing artist and repertoire work for all of our signed artists on our label, Shadowland Records."

McNeil explains that part of her job is to find talent, get them signed, promote their work and try to licence their work out to publishers.

Currently, McNeil is working on signing Yellowknife artists she's met while in the city. But she emphasizes that she's looking for talent from all over the NWT and Nunavut.

"We're really trying to expand our catalogue and definitely to include more aboriginal people, including Inuit and women. We're trying to get a really diverse catalogue of music to market overseas."

McNeil suggests that if anybody has musical aspirations, just sing into a recorder and send it along.

One marketing tool is the Internet.

"Number 1, we're putting all of our artists up on mp3.com," she says.

The site www.mp3.com is a place to upload and download music.

"You can buy music there, too, and you can find out all about an artist. We have Web pages now on mp3 for Paul Carroll, for Red Light District, for Sound of the Subarctic, a relaxation CD. It's just a good way to get heard."

The key for Shadowland is to offer their artists as much exposure as possible. McNeil is also currently working on the paperwork for Wade to attend an international marketing conference in France. Also in the works is a Red Light District video to release to MuchMusic.

"Now we have a video editing suite. That's really exciting," says McNeil.

"So I'm working really hard to set up some recording contracts, making money come through the door so that he (Wade) can't run the show without me," laughs McNeil, who clearly intends to make herself indispensable in the field she loves.