Sold! Mi'kmaq group confirms purchase of CBC land

A Mi'kmaq group has bought the land outside Sackville where13 Radio Canada International towers stood for decades, CBC-Radio Canada confirmed Friday.

Five years after the Tantramar Marsh site was put up for sale, the New Brunswick non-profit Mi'gmawe'l Tplu'taqnnbought it for an undisclosed price.

"This transaction closes the book on an interesting chapter for CBC/Radio-Canada and Canadian broadcasting in the world of international shortwave broadcasting," CBC'sMartin Marcotte wrote in an email.

A long broadcast history

The shortwave service ran for 67 years, and the site's towers facilitated the service around the world until budget cuts in 2012.

The 90-hectareproperty was initially listed with the towers, toavoid the high cost of dismantling the facility, but in 2014, CBC began dismantling the towers in hopes the blank slate would entice more buyers.

"It's tough to take something down that served such a purpose for the country, you know, during the Second World War," LarryWartman, CBC's senior manager of transmission operations for Western and Atlantic Canada, told CBC News in 2014. "There's just not that many of them around the world anymore."

Building the future

The New Brunswick Mi'kmaqgroup Mi'gmawe'l Tplu'taqnnpurchased the land Thursday but has yet to announce any plans or comment on the purchase, other than to confirm it.The non-profit group's members are the nineMi'kmaqcommunities in the province.

Mi'gmawe'lTplu'taqnn means "how we govern ourselves" andthe group'smission is to"to promote and support the recognition, affirmation, exercise and implementation of the inherent Aboriginal and treaty rights of its member First Nations, including the right of self-determination."

The purchase price is still unknown.