A new oral tradition. That was the whole concept behind the APTN Network.
“We enter the new millennium into a world of technology. While using this technology we can gather our nations on our televisions in our homes,” were among the first words to hit the airwaves on Sept. 1, 1999. The first broadcast was a three hour live show from the historic forks site, a traditional gathering place for Indigenous Peoples for hundreds of years.
“It was all very exciting, heart thumping too. You know, we were going live and just hoping everything went off without a hitch,” said Jim Compton, an Ojibway man dubbed as one of the networks founding fathers.
At that time, Compton was the first director of programming for APTN.
“We started off in a spiritual way, said Compton, as he shared a story about how the late Tobasonakwut Kinew, held a sunrise and pipe ceremony to start the day off in a good way. Kinew, who passed away on Dec. 23, 2012, was a well known spiritual leader and had adopted Compton.
“My dad Tobasonakwut, on that day, that very morning (he) gave a pipe to APTN, and that sits in the boardroom of aptn,” Compton said.
Compton’s came back to APTN for a walk down memory lane.
“Do I remember that day?,” he asks himself. “When I was driving here I was thinking ‘wow, I remember driving the same route cause I live at the same house.’”
Perched on the top floor of the newsroom, where APTN Investigates staff work, he looks down to the APTN National News staff below.
“Get to work you guys,” he jokes.
When Compton left APTN, four years after it was on the airwaves, the news department was small and still in the main building at 339 Portage Ave. APTN News expanded, taking over the building next door in January 2016.
Compton is seeing the new space with fresh eyes.
“Your studio here, I dreamt of an Indigenous person with braids reading the news and I was watching it on TV and my heart just went through the roof,” Compton said as he recalled some of his spiritual visions he had before the network launched.
“Maybe this was the dream I was talking about,” said Compton as he was greeted by host and producer Creeson Agecoutay.
Natural born storytellers
A few days prior, up on the fifth floor at 339 Portage Ave. a come and go celebration for another APTN original.
In the tune to Happy Birthday, staff from all departments came together to sing “Happy workiversary” to Wayne McKenzie, APTN’s Director of Operations.
McKenzie was also around before the launch, and just celebrated his 25th year of service for APTN.
After he waves the candles out with a pad of paper rather than blowing them out he tells those who just sang to him, “For those that don’t know APTN wasn’t an accident for me. It wasn’t me wandering off, aimlessly wondering what I was going to do with my life. I’ve known since I was a kid that I wanted to work in television or film,” McKenzie said.
“I set my sights on a national television network for indigenous programming since about 1981 or 1982.”
The launch of APTN
Compton didn’t make it to the event, but he shared fond stories of some of the heavy hitters like McKenzie and others that went to the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission or the CRTC in November 1998 to get a license to launch APTN.
By February 1999, they got the approval.
“We are born with that gift to tell stories,” Compton said. “All those guys, we trained them,” Compton said as he points to much of the studio crew. We started out in 1997 to train them under the Aboriginal Broadcasting Training Initiative in anticipation. We didn’t know if we were going to get the network, but we had a good feeling we were going to get it. So we trained them in journalism, we trained them in camera work, trained them in editing, presentation, all of that stuff.”
Sandra Seidel is the lineup producer for APTN News.
“One of the original,” she jokes as she works on the live evening newscast. She first started at APTN as an intern and later came back to work as part of the studio crew, doing camera first and later moving to associate director.
In between she’s giving direction to Agecoutay who is in the anchor seat.
The beauty of live TV. It’s always a work in progress and one Seidel handles with ease after all these years.
“I’m like an APTN Elder now,” she said as she bursts into laughter.
Original People, Original Television
There are 12 people of First Nations, Inuit and Métis descent that sit on the APTN Board of Directors.
On the board is Jennifer David of the Chapleau Cree First Nation in northeastern Ontario. She calls Ottawa home now and is representing the Southeast Quadrant.
Talking about some of my favorite programs that’s hard, that’s like asking who is your favorite child,” David said when asked about what she loves about APTN, “It’s really hard because you’ve got news, you’ve got comedy, you’ve got documentaries.”
“I do remember when we launched, I was really proud of our original, a couple of our original shows which, as you may recall, we didn’t have a lot back in the day but cooking with the wolfman man it was great to see that show, sort of launch the network.”
Back then, during the launch, David was the director of communications.
David is also a published author. No surprise here, she wrote about the start of APTN. Her book called Original People, Original Television combines memoir style writing with history. As part of the 25th anniversary, her book is being re-released.
She shared some of her thoughts on this milestone for the network.
“Twenty-Five is still not that old. I mean, if it was a person they could finally rent a car. I really think there is so much more ahead,” she said, “I am feeling nostalgic and remembering that day back in 1999, absolutely crazy and proud to think it’s come this far.
“Like any baby that’s born, you know, you are carefully watching over it to make sure it survives,” David said.
David said it’s been a windy road but worth every minute of it. Now is the time for Indigenous stories, because she says there is an endless appetite for them.
“Especially since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” she said, “And with things like the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, self determination, supreme court cases there is just going to be more and more need for APTN to provide analysis so that Canadians can understand these issues,” David said.
Words that Compton agreed with, taking it even one step further.
“It’s now being recognized through article 16. But you know, we were ahead of article 16. We fought for it. It wasn’t easy,” Compton said.
A fight well worth all the sweat and tears Compton says as he points and acknowledges the traditional pipe given to APTN all those years ago.
“That pipe, has carried us 25 years and I think, it will carry us another 100 years.”
