Tuning in to APTN, a TV voice for largely ignored indigenous Canadians

WINNIPEG, Manitoba — The day's top news stories are beamed from a round studio that evokes a tepee. Adventurous chefs teach viewers how to hunt, skin and cook beaver in a stew. Cartoons about a powerful superhero are broadcast in the Algonquin language.

These are just some of the many programs that appear on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, Canada's indigenous broadcaster. Better known as APTN, the network is mainly aimed at viewers in Canada whose cultures existed long before the first Europeans arrived. But its reach is far larger, available to more than 11 million Canadian cable and satellite subscribers with news and entertainment programs designed to reflect the community values, spiritual traditions and political priorities of indigenous people across Canada.

"You would never hear these stories without a network dedicated to our voices," said Terry Teegee, chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, which represents eight aboriginal First Nation communities in British Columbia.

By focusing on people who have been largely ignored by the nation's mainstream media, the network has become a powerful platform for hundreds of aboriginal communities separated by distance and identity but united in their demands for greater recognition in Canadian society.

The network has received a lift from the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has promised to reset Canada's relationship with its indigenous peoples. Aware of the network's political influence among aboriginal communities, Trudeau in June became the first sitting prime minister to sit down for an interview with APTN.

The network began in 1999 with a mission to speak for and to the roughly 1.8 million indigenous people in a country that is about 75 percent white. While ethnic minorities often appear on mainstream Canadian networks, "the original people are not represented," said Sky Bridges, 38, chief operating officer of APTN, a nonprofit organization that generates revenue through subscriber fees, advertising sales and strategic partnerships.

The growing appetite for onscreen indigenous narratives comes amid a wave of aboriginal activism, renewed government openness and legal victories that is changing the way Canada deals politically with indigenous perspectives on the environment, human rights and social issues after more than a century largely defined by governmental and cultural dismissal.

"We now live in a time when aboriginal culture is awakening," said Bridges, who is of mixed indigenous and European ancestry, known as Metis, one of the three officially recognized aboriginal groups in Canada, along with the northern Inuit and First Nations. "It's important for us to be able to celebrate our culture and make sure it stays alive."

To further fulfill that mandate, Bridges said APTN was planning to expand into the U.S. in 2017 with a new cable channel, the All Nations Network, which will have 80 percent of its content produced by Native Americans. He declined to provide details because no deal has been signed.

Based in Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba, the network has broadcast in English, French and 20 languages spoken by many of Canada's 634 First Nations. Driven by the spotlight of a 24-hour channel and a majority aboriginal workforce, the network has used its firsthand cultural understanding to broadcast and produce investigative reporting, comedies, dramas, educational shows and other programming with the authenticity its audience craves.

Viewers can watch shows like "Blackstone," a gritty drama about politics and crime on a fictional aboriginal reserve; "Taken," a documentary series focused on the unsolved cases of Canada's missing and murdered indigenous women; and "Moosemeat & Marmalade," a globe-trotting food series that pairs an aboriginal bush cook with a classically trained British chef. The hosts have hunted moose, foraged for wild greens and thanked the spirit of a buffalo they killed before grilling the meat.

The show "gives people a glimpse into a world they rarely see," said Art Napoleon, 55, one of the hosts, who grew up on a First Nation reserve in British Columbia. "People often think of the past or in stereotypes, but we're still here. We have our own worldview, and a lot of that is still in place."

One of the network's most popular series is "Mohawk Girls," a comedy-drama that depicts the lives of four young indigenous women as they navigate modern love, cultural expectations, career ambitions and the effects of colonization on an aboriginal Mohawk reserve outside Montreal.

"Growing up, we never saw ourselves on TV," said Tracey Deer, 38, the director, a Mohawk who was raised on the reserve where the series is set. The show's lighthearted approach aims to reflect the joys of indigenous life, she said, while attempting to change stereotypes of aboriginal poverty and suffering. "We're not just a tragedy."

Still, the show tackles real-life issues some indigenous people would prefer be kept off screen, including recent expulsions of nonindigenous residents from the reserve along with their indigenous family members, based on a 1981 rule designed to preserve Mohawk blood purity. The ban provides a backdrop for a character, the child of a Mohawk father and white mother, who moves to the reserve from New York City and faces hostility. Some viewers are unhappy at seeing unpleasant aspects of their culture publicly shown. "People call me traitor," Deer said.

Disputes over indigenous representation extend back centuries. Long the target of forced assimilation by white settlers, many aboriginal people in Canada remain stifled by colonial-era treaties and discriminatory laws used to strip them of land, political autonomy and legal rights. The legacy has led to disproportionately high rates of aboriginal violence, substance abuse and deprivation.

But Canadian society learns little about such underlying factors from the more established news media's reporting on indigenous life, according to Gitz Crazyboy, 32, an aboriginal activist, who described most of the Canadian news media's coverage as "poverty porn."

"The news tends to perpetuate a lot of stereotypes and thinly veiled racism," he said. "You'll mostly see stories about drunken Indians or native people killing themselves, without realizing there's a deeper context."

Working for an indigenous broadcaster helps native communities overcome their inherent mistrust of the news media, said Melissa Ridgen, an APTN investigative reporter. In recent years, she has exposed a rural doctor who was overprescribing opiates while also running a methadone clinic; another segment uncovered abuses of aboriginal day laborers in Winnipeg, home to Canada's largest urban indigenous population.

With its team of more than 20 reporters and 11 domestic bureaus, the network's news programs seek to focus on indigenous communities and the Canadian government, which is responsible for much of their affairs. The network has exposed a raft of embarrassing government scandals, uncovered information that helped free a wrongfully imprisoned indigenous woman, and has drawn sustained national attention to long-neglected indigenous problems like police racism, child-welfare-system abuses and the continuing lack of safe drinking water on nearly 100 First Nations reserves.

"We go to those places a lot, but others don't," said Dennis Ward, 34, a Metis reporter at APTN. "They just fly in for a day."

The network plays an important role in government accountability. Trudeau has promised a "total renewal" of Canada's relationship with its indigenous people, a marked turnaround from his predecessor, Stephen Harper, who was widely criticized for his indifference to aboriginal issues. In an interview with the network during his election campaign last year, Trudeau pledged that First Nations would "absolutely" have veto power over natural resource projects in their territories.

But since becoming prime minister, he has violated that pledge by allowing such projects to move forward despite protests from indigenous communities.

Ana Collins, 36, a legislative assistant for Romeo Saganash, an outspoken indigenous member of the Canadian Parliament, credits the network with highlighting Trudeau's change of heart, resulting in mounting public pressure that she and others hope will persuade him to reconsider his position.

"APTN been very good about reminding viewers of that promise," she said, "and how important that promise is."