Some Personal Experiences with the Evolution of Northern Communications

Greg Smith, Senior Consultant

From the desk of Greg Smith, Senior Consultant:

One fascinating aspect of northern development has been the evolution and adaption of new communications technologies. Because the north is so dependent on communications, northerners, including Aboriginal communities, have often been early adopters and innovators in the use of new technologies. Through my personal experience, including a number of consulting projects I have been involved in, I have seen some dramatic changes.

My own connection to the north goes back to 1949, when I moved to the Yukon as an infant with my parents – my father was in the air force at the time, and we spent four years in Whitehorse. Later, in the 1950’s, while we lived in Ontario, he managed a couple of DEW Line stations in the Northwest Territories. He would be gone for most of the year, returning for a six week break each summer. Most of the time we were out of touch, but occasionally we would get a surprise call from a ham radio operator who had managed to set up a “phone patch” linking us to our father, using the “over and out” method of conversation. But that was rare, and the north seemed like another, far distant world, which it really was in those days.

By the time I moved to Inuvik in the early 1980’s to work with the Inuvialuit, telephone, radio and television service was widely available, but still relatively limited compared to the current spectrum of services. The creation of the Northern Native Broadcast Access Program (NNBAP) in 1983, along with the development of satellite services, opened up opportunities for northern Aboriginal groups to create and distribute their own radio and television programming. This eventually led to the creation of Television Northern Canada (TVNC) which distributed programming across the north, and later the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) which is a national service.

I was heavily involved in the early days of northern native broadcasting, as Executive Director of the Inuvialuit Communications Society, and then as lead consultant for the initial planning and funding of TVNC, as well as work for a number of other Aboriginal broadcast organizations. I still vividly remember first being introduced to satellites at a 1983 meeting of Aboriginal organizations hosted by the Department of the Secretary of State in Ottawa. It was fascinating to follow the arrows on their charts leading upwards to space from a source on the ground, and then leading back to earth from the satellite, which floated in geosynchronous orbit high above. It seemed like a magical opening to endless possibilities.

Simonie and Lucien Ukalinuk

In the early 1980’s communication was mostly by telephone, regular mail, and courier. Around 1985 the Inuvialuit Development Corporation got a “Dex” machine (i.e. fax) and we could watch documents being transmitted instantaneously over phone lines. People were starting to use computers then – one consultant, Kendall Lougheed, turned up from Ottawa with his version of a portable computer – three large cases which contained a desktop and printer. He was charged for excess weight by the airline. Eventually our organization (ICS) installed an IBM desktop in “the computer room” (no smoking allowed), where staff members could book a time to use it.

By the early 1990’s computers were more common, but it was still not unusual to walk into an organization’s office and see one sitting in a corner that no one knew how to operate – the person who did know had moved on. Awareness of the Internet was emerging as was the use of e-mail. In 1994 I helped to organize, and presented at, a Cree Communications Symposium in Montreal, which linked that site by videoconference to several northern Cree communities, as well as to Ottawa. One of the invited presenters described the Internet and how it would soon be possible to access all kinds of information from almost anywhere, which sounded pretty futuristic at the time. Also, for the first time, using the equipment we had installed with sponsors Adcom, Telesat and Telebec, Crees in remote communities could see their friends and colleagues in other locations face to face on boardroom screens. One youth leader, James Shecapio, who was in Nemaska, joked on screen with Grand Chief Mathew Coon-Come, in Ottawa, that he had been trying to get a meeting with him for weeks. Soon after, the Cree School Board installed videoconferencing in all nine communities, to use for distance learning.

Susan and Kevin Arnatsiaq

In 1998 we did a study with Harold Tarbell, for the federal government, of how Aboriginal entrepreneurs were using the Internet. By that time, the “World Wide Web”, also referred to as “the Information Super Highway” was a major subject of discussion, including how Aboriginal people would access and use it. Connectivity in the north continued to be a major barrier (and still is in some communities today). The federal government had a program to help install computers in small, rural communities (the Community Access Program – CAP) which rolled out over a number of years, and many individuals and organizations were also purchasing and using computers. One figure from our study report, based on Statistics Canada data from 1997, indicated that while 36% of Canadian households had a computer at the time, only 13% were connected to the Internet. However both these rates were increasing rapidly. Our surveys and focus groups with Aboriginal entrepreneurs showed that, of those who responded, 76.5% used the Internet for business, 70.6% had an e-mail address, 46.1% had a website, and over two thirds used e-mail at least once a week, and accessed the Internet at least once a week.

However, there continued to be significant barriers to use of the Internet, videoconferencing, and other communication technologies throughout the north – in particular a lack of communications infrastructure and access to bandwidth, as well as the high cost of many services. At the same time, distance and travel costs continued to be major barriers for northerners wanting to stay in touch for personal, business or other reasons. Health and education were among the important drivers for improvements to communications infrastructure – it was always hard to explain to an outsider why a simple training program - for example for two people per community in Nunavut - could cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, when the same program could be run in a southern city for the cost of a few subway tokens and a borrowed room at a college.

We were also involved in several projects from 1997 to 2002 to demonstrate the use of videoconferencing for a variety of purposes of interest to the north. The first project, for the Canadian Museum of Nature, linked school children from the Museum’s exhibit at the Montreal IUCN conference with children in Iqaluit (Nunavut). It also involved a scientist involved in polar bear research talking to Inuit elders about traditional knowledge. Other videoconferencing projects in partnership with the Museum and the community of Igloolik established links between the two sites to demonstrate a variety of potential applications. These included family reunions – most memorably the opportunity for a small child from Igloolik who was in Ottawa for medical treatment to see his mother face to face on screen for the first time in several months. Others included meetings, training sessions, and cultural exchanges including one between an Australian Aborigine, Francis Firebrace, who told stories and danced with residents of Igloolik – all at a distance. Videoconferencing also linked the Museum’s Arctic Odyssey exhibit in Ottawa with the north.

Videoconferencing between Ottawa and Igloolik

But while these projects were very interesting, and demonstrated the potential for videoconferencing technology to bridge distances and to be a tool for education and exchange, the price was still prohibitive. The signal travelled to and from Igloolik to Northwestel’s offices in Yellowknife by satellite, and from there was bridged to Ottawa via six land (telephone) lines. This cost in the area of a couple of thousand dollars an hour, on top of all the other project costs for equipment, staff, training, and project organization, management and support.

In the past decade, there has been a concerted effort to upgrade bandwidth in the north. Computers are much more commonly used, as are other devices such as mobile phones, and Internet access has improved, though is still not as accessible and reliable as in the south. Skype, email, VPN’s and other advances have dramatically lowered the costs of communication and distance delivery of training and health services has evolved. However travel is still a major factor in doing business in the north. One of the principal roles of consultants before the Internet was to act as a kind of information broker who helped to find and share information with northern communities and organizations. This could include researching government or other funding programs, statistical or other data, identifying service providers, or potential business partners and other opportunities. Now, northerners have direct access to the world, at relatively low cost, from where they live. The nature of consulting work is more focused on the direct provision of specialized services such as planning, evaluation, training, research and organizational and economic development. It will be fascinating to continue to follow the impact of evolving communication technologies and services on the north and on those who work with northern communities.