Mount Currie could soon have a voice on the airwaves if plans for a Lil'wat radio station come through.
The First Nation situated east of Pemberton has been seeking its own radio station since at least October 2007, around the time that a broadcast engineer was chosen to provide proponents with available frequencies and call letters.
Since then it's gained a lot more steam, with an online campaign to see the station become a reality. Proponent Clint Andrew, who is also a professional actor, has established both a Bebo account and Facebook group to raise a campaign for the station and hopes to have it on the air as early as August.
Andrew said the main reason behind a radio station in Mount Currie is so the community can do a better job communicating with members.
"It's been since last year maybe that it's actually been moving forward," he said. "But it's been mentioned before, like years before, but it never came to fruition."
Andrew is taking a leading role in developing the radio station, along with Larry Miller, general manager of the Lil'wat Business Corporation. If it ever becomes a reality, Andrew hopes to bring his experience as an actor as well as an on-air announcer with N'Quatqua Radio to the north to the airwaves in Mount Currie.
While working with N'Quatqua Radio he was program manager, in charge of all the on-air programming including music, commercials and shows. While there he also did a three-hour morning show and he "created all the station IDs," the short announcements you hear when identifying the station you're listening to.
"You can still hear my IDs on air," he said.
The reach of the Lil'wat Radio Station wouldn't extend beyond Mount Currie and Pemberton, but he still thinks it would be an important thing for the community. The main things he hopes it could contribute would be helping people become better informed about community events and news, as well as programming in the Lil'wat language.
"We can have our language be heard every day, pretty much," he said. "It would just be another avenue to make it easier and more accessible. Like having a word of the day or something, and our language and legends, you know, like we can have a storytelling day or something in our language."
Once completed, he expects the station to broadcast out of the community complex currently being built in the centre of Mount Currie. Morning shows would happen between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. and he also expects to see a call-in show, as well as native music and news.
Its call number hasn't yet been confirmed, nor has its on-air date. But Andrew and Miller are currently putting together an application to the CRTC to make it happen. They're also looking for grants, but that too is in the preliminary stage.
