Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 19/01) - Yellowknife's local French community finally has a radio station to call its own.

Radio Taiga programmer Christine Cadet shares a moment with her listeners. The station hit the airwaves for the first time last Friday. -Mike W. Bryant/NNSL photo

Radio Taiga, officially CIVR at 103.5 on the FM dial, went on the air for the first time Friday at 6 p.m. The Association Franco-Culturelle de Yellowknife had been waiting patiently for that day since first coming up with the idea of a community radio station in 1997.

Previously, the 850-strong French community made do with Sunday programming on CKLB or CBC French radio.

"The only signal we have is CBC, so we get traffic highlights from Montreal, which are useless here," said Radio Taiga program director Christine Cadet.

"It means a lot. Through music we're expressing ourselves through the community. I think we're going to reach a lot of people."

Besides music, the station will also provide community updates and weather information.

Local staff will produce 15 hours of programming per week, while the remainder will come from the station's parent umbrella organization, Reseau Francophone D'Amerique, which operates 15 French-language stations across the country.

The radio station is in the basement of the association's building on 48th Street.

According to association president Michel Lefebvre, paving the way for the radio station required a lot of fundraising and help from both the territorial and federal governments.

"We've been doing fundraising for the last few years -- we had a meat pie drive last Christmas," among other fundraising activities, said Lefebvre.

Getting the station off the ground cost more than $100,000. Fifty per cent of the funding came from Heritage Canada, and another 35 per cent came from the territorial Department of Education, Culture and Employment.

Lefebvre said he hopes the station does well, because it will be largely on its own from now on.

For the time being, the association is just happy to be on the air. Members held a party at the Cave Saturday night. Southern francophone musicians, including Suzette Montreuil, Paul Andrew and Edmond Dufort, had the crowd hopping all night long.

"Even tonight, it was a sort of Folk on the Rocks," said Lefebvre. "I hope the radio station breaks down barriers. Music is an important part of life."