How Indigenous creators claim — and grow — spaces in radio and podcasting

From Indigenous radio stations to podcasts to programs on the CBC itself, Indigenous broadcasters are raising their voices more than ever before.

It's about claiming space — and inviting others into the circle.

Rosanna Deerchild, host of CBC Radio's Unreserved, was joined by Shawn Spruce, Shayla Oulette Stonechild and David McLeod in Toronto at the Radiodays North America conference for a panel titled Raising Our Voices.

Claiming Indigenous spaces for radio and other forms of audio broadcasting was a key objective for Native Communications Inc (NCI), which is based in Winnipeg and airs across Manitoba.

Before its launch in 1971, media and pop culture from newspapers to movie theatres were moving into the north of the province, with its remote and isolated population — but none of it had any Indigenous content.

"It was as though this eruption, volcano of communications came to an area, a region, [with] no representation of the people that were there," said McLeod, NCI's CEO, who is a member of Minegoziibe Anishinabe First Nation.

"So it comes from wanting [the] community to have a voice. And that voice matters so much."

The radio's format played a big part, said McLeod, since it's inexpensive to access, and provides an instant, often-live connection with the people on the air.

Spruce, who is Laguna Pueblo and host of Native America Calling, a call-in radio show based in Albuquerque, said he wanted to bring in more diverse perspectives to the program when he was asked to host it.

"I'm a very firm believer [that] everyone has a story, right? Every single person in this room, everybody listening to my show, all these other shows and podcasts, everybody has a story. The only thing is that some people need a little bit of help telling their story. And that's where I really see my role is," he said.

Stonechild, who is Métis and Nehiyaw Iskwew from Muscowpetung First Nation, wears several hats in podcasting, media and business from hosting her podcast, Matriarch Movement, to being a global yoga ambassador for Lululemon. She said her main goal is to help amplify the voices of Indigenous women and two-spirit people, and to help flip the script of how they're often portrayed in media.

"Oftentimes Indigenous women are seen in a state of vulnerability or a state of survival. Yet when I looked around in my communities and my friend groups, that's not what I saw," she said. 

"I saw women that were trailblazing industries they've never seen themselves in, that were the backbones of their families, that are healing intergenerational trauma."

Stonechild also weaves in her interest in Indigenous futurism into her podcast, "because, oftentimes, I feel like non-Indigenous people think of us in a historical sense. Either we're like riding on a horse," she said.