Igalaaq, Northbeat celebrate 20 years: A look at how TV evolved in the North

Northbeat and Igalaaq have come a long way in 20 years.

In 1995, CBC North launched its first daily television news programs: Northbeat, the English show hosted by Paul Andrew and George Tuccaro, and Igalaaq, hosted in Inuktitut by Rassi Nashalik.

Both shows were broadcast out of Yellowknife not an easy task at the time.

"It was a huge leap of faith," says Marie Wilson, the former director of the former CBC Northern Services, who went on to chair the Truth and Reconciliation Commission."It really was an example of defying the impossible."

For years, Wilson says she pushed and pushed for daily news in Canada's North, repeatedly going to CBC network executives and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, but was alwaystold the same thing: there's no money.

When she was finally given the green light in 1995, there was a lot to overcome a lack of money,staff andequipment, and a huge region to cover.

Eat your heart out, Mansbridge

Northbeat and Igalaaq are broadcast to the three northern territories, as well as northern Quebec, which coverfour different time zones.

"We had this enormous geography," Wilson says. "It would be like asking [Peter] Mansbridge, 'Do you mind doing the national news over all those time zones with just a handful of people?' And that's what CBC North had to do."

Wilson says she scoured the country for leftover equipment, as well as people who could lend a hand and train the staff at CBC North, which changed its name from CBC Northern Services.

She recalls when network executives watched in amazement as Nashalik hosted Igalaaq in Inuktitut, translating the English teleprompter as she went.

"They had never seen anything like it," she says.

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Wilson says she's most proud of the work that went on behind the scenes.

"Which was really to make the national network pay attention to this region, and to say, if you want to claim sovereignty in northern Canada, then you've got to start providing proper services for national institutions," she says.

"To make the North feel like it's part of the country also, and that it matters."

Come a long way

Before Northbeat and Igalaaq launched, Northerners' access to daily television was way behind the times literally.

In the 70s, larger communities would get taped programs shipped by plane from the South thatwere anywhere from five days to four weeks old.

For CBC in Yellowknife, getting its first television programs on the air was also a feat.

Keith MacNeill, producer of the old weekly half-hour current affairs show, Focus North, says they would film the show Thursday and edit all day Friday,then it was up to CBCToronto (and hopefully,no flight delays) to get it on TV screens.

"Somebody had to be out of thebuilding at 5 o'clock to take the tape physically up to the airport, put it on a plane so that it would get to Toronto over the weekend, so that Toronto could play the tape back on Monday nights when Focus North was shown."

When CBC Northgot the technology to broadcast live, it was finally possible to air stories on the day they actually happened. With bureaus in all three territories, Northbeat and Igalaaq replaced the weekly shows.

"We had the loyalty of audiences who felt, 'Finally for the first time we are seeing a regular, daily reflection of ourselves, of our own priorities and the issues that matter to us,'" Wilson says.