For Robert Merasty, working in radio has been a dream come true. (Submitted/ Brooke Faval)

By Nigel Maxwell

Language

Consuming Indigenous Media

Jun 5, 2022 | 11:10 PM

Robert Merasty takes great pride knowing each morning when he rises at the crack of dawn, he’s helping preserve Indigenous languages.

His popular Cree and Michif program on CILX, has been running for nearly three years out of Ile-a-la-Crosse. Prior to that he worked at another indigenous run station in Pelican Narrows.

“Some of our elders told me when they don’t hear me, when they don’t hear their Cree language or the Michif language, they get very lonely,” he said.

“They feel at home when they hear their languages being spoken to on radio. It makes them feel good.”

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Language was always very important in Merasty’s own home growing up. Before going to the residential school in the mid 1950’s, he was already very fluent in both Cree and Michif. That’s part of the reason he now enjoys meeting youth.

“These young people try to speak to me in Cree. They have difficulties but they are trying and that’s what makes me feel really happy so I know we are getting across to them,” he said.

Earlier this year, a similar radio station opened at Red Earth Cree Nation. Merasty said there’s a definite need for more radio stations like this, adding they serve an important role in telling traditional, cultural, and spiritual stories.

“We are carrying on stories of our people on a daily basis,” he said.

Merasty’s roots in radio date back to the early 1970’s and in 1980, he and a few others helped develop Missinippi Broadcasting. Merasty said it was always their dream to create something they could call their own.

“Between community radio and MBC, I think we are doing a job that really needs to be done,” he said, adding what was just a job to begin with, has since become a dream come true”

RECN 104.1 FM was officially launched last February. (Submitted photo/Chief Fabian Head)

RECN 104.1FM, is a local volunteer run radio station, and combines a mix of music and information programming and as much as Cree language as possible.

“The use of technology in the last ten years has somewhat destructed our Cree language and some of our youth are having trouble speaking Cree so we have to balance that,” Chief Fabian Head told paNOW at the time of the radio station’s grand opening.

“I think the community will benefit greatly,” he said

In addition to helping inform all community members during wildfire evacuations the previous October, the radio station has more recently served as an important tool to spread information about a missing five-year-old boy.

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