Marie Wilson on work with the CBC and life as premier's wife
Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Aug 14/00) - Three images stand out, helping to define Marie Wilson, former regional director of CBC North.
The first is a Focus North clip from almost 20 years ago. In it we see a vibrant Wilson as a young mother. A toddler, her first daughter, Kyla, is propped on her hip. On location somewhere in the North, she speaks confidently into the camera.
 Marie Wilson |
The final defining moment comes at the end of the interview. Wilson's husband, NWT Premier Stephen Kakfwi, comes in. From then on it's a mad rush of schedules. Who has to be where, when. Who's picking up who, and at what time. It's the basic bustle of a busy family of five.
Home, family and CBC North -- these are the staples of Wilson's life. That, and the passion and optimism that fuel whatever she takes on -- whether it's teaching in Africa, working as a national reporter, or living in Fort Good Hope in one of the "last remaining original log houses -- no running water, a wood stove for heating and a wood stove for cooking, and cloth diapers."
Working hard at home
"It was tough. I probably worked as hard as I've ever worked in my life. And Stephen was travelling even then, so there were lots of times when I was alone in that house. It was very insular. And for the first time in my life I was not working. I was home with a baby. On the other hand, we had beautiful times. It was extremes. You learn about yourself in those circumstances."
Coming North, she says later, made her feel like she could breathe.
"I like the humbling aspect of being the minority, that destabilizing thing that keeps you learning all the time."
Wilson and Kakfwi met in the south: she pursuing a career in journalism; he travelling, involved in aboriginal politics. They married in Quebec City. A long-lasting CBC strike led them to Fort Good Hope, Kakfwi's home community, and the log cabin.
Wilson laughs at the direction her career took in those days -- from national reporter for CBC Radio to community reporter for CBC North out of Fort Good Hope. Hardly a devoted careerist's move.
Eventually, the young family moved to Yellowknife, husband and wife juggling careers, marriage and children.
"We've spent a lot of our professional lives, both Stephen and I, trying to co-ordinate travel so that we're not both gone at the same time. It's been beneficial for the kids, but tough for us. We've tried to keep the kids the focus. It's complicated by the fact that neither of our own families are here."
In the absence of blood relatives, Wilson says a family of friends and community has been created. Holidays means sharing them.
"We've done that for years. And I was always invited for Thanksgiving or Christmas. There's a very strong tradition of that here. We're all part of the Northern community. As a family, we've always had extra people, made broader connections."
Life in transition
After Kakfwi was elected premier of the Northwest Territories, Wilson left the small community of CBC North. Now she's in transition.
"It hasn't settled out yet," she says. She hasn't slowed down, she's gone from "busy to busy," with summer "putting its own skew on things" -- guests, gardening, home renovations and some travelling with Kakfwi.
"In a way nothing's changed. He's away a lot. When he's here he works very long hours. The expectations that he can be available for everybody at all times...that really hasn't changed all that much. It's just a matter of having to decide what can he do and what can't he do."
One thing that has changed, says Wilson, is that she's just travelled with her husband for the first time on a work-related trip through the Delta and the Sahtu. Although the official trip as wife of the NWT premier culminated at the Akaitcho Treaty 8 Centenary in Fort Resolution, Wilson had her own reason to attend.
"What's interesting and an important realization...I had a personal invitation from Chief (Richard) Edjericon. That meant a lot to me. I've always had a very shared life with Stephen here, but I've always had a very independent one."
Finding a balance
Wilson recounts attending the Aboriginal Achievement Awards in March in Vancouver.
"I remembered that the year Stephen received his award was the only other time I'd gone. It was really surprising to him, and revealing, the number of aboriginal leaders from across the country that came up to me and said hello to me, and I had to introduce him."
"We're making discoveries about each other's work," she adds simply.
Reversing the roles, Wilson tells about attending a literacy event at which Kakfwi spoke, which she attended as a "normal person" and not as a broadcaster.
"It was like I was having this out-of-body experience, just trying to be somebody in the room. I was really admiring what he was saying and how he presented himself. And I thought probably everybody in the room has heard him speak countless times more than I have. It was just a really interesting revelation for me to actually witness him doing part of his job."
The Wilson-Kakfwi marriage, it seems to an outsider, is one of balance: each of their careers taking priority at different times. But being the regional director for a public broadcaster, while being married to a politician has, on occasion, created some difficulties.
"I've had to be very clear, establish levels of management."
A system was set in place, at her request, that her staff could access should they feel principles were being compromised.
Grown up in the North
Wilson's relationship to the North has a rare depth. She was raised in Southern Ontario, but feels she's grown up with a lot of the North, witnessing, because of her work at CBC North, "all the little twists and turns."
"I feel privileged," she says.
As the first host and only reporter of Focus North at its inception, Wilson travelled all over the North. Thrown into television for the first time in her life, with cast-off equipment from southern CBC studios, she interviewed "anything that crept or breathed."
"It was rough around the edges. We had forgiving audiences. We just worked with what we had. We did have a lot of fun."
An important, integral aspect of the new show was to get "as many Northern people as possible."
"People felt connected. We were trying to see television and radio from the outside in, not vice versa."
This goal is one Wilson carried through to her years as regional director.
There are enormous commonalities (across the North), she says, and an important task has been to reveal the commonalities while clarifying the differences.
When Wilson left the mother corp. after 23 years with the public broadcaster on June 2, 2000, her staff, spanning the North from the Yukon to Northern Quebec, made her a retrospective videotape.
In it, among the many qualities they list, the words that resurface are "strong" and "tough."
Those qualities have translated into accomplishments that make her proud. She cites the fact that when she started, there wasn't a single Northern aboriginal broadcaster.
"Now it's pretty close to 50-50."
She also talks about the launching of daily television programming in the North.
"The rightness of it is indisputable. We did that in the face of cuts. It's tragic that we've been so cut."
Her pride as a person?
"My three great kids. Most of the time, we like each other. They're good and kind people."
