I grew up with a constant supply of media. When I was in the primary grades, my family got a television, and we gathered around that every evening. Later, in the intermediate grades, transistor radios became the rage and I spent many an hour listening to WJPS, the local rock and roll radio station with the ear plug in my ear, during those times when I wasn’t in front of the TV.
During university, with the entry of the US into the Vietnam War, I became a “news junkie” and was constantly monitoring the war and politics. It got to the point where I had to always have some kind of media on in the back ground as I lived my life.
In 1973, I took a teaching job in a one-room school in the isolated wilds of British Columbia. The area was so remote that there was no TV reception and only rarely were we able to pick up a radio station sometimes at night. It was difficult for me to live without the media, but somehow we managed.
After three years living without media, we left the isolation and moved into places that did offer radio and TV reception. It didn’t take me long to be thoroughly hooked on the constant stream of media again.
We moved to McBride in 1977, and after a couple of years we actually were able to watch more than one television station, besides the mainstay CBC, we had CTV, ITV, and the Knowledge Network (BC’s educational channel). Those were augmented by the arrival of VCR’s and movie video tapes. This was before the internet with all that that offered, but we were happy at all of the media choices that we had available.
Then on January 20th of 1994, suddenly we had no media at all. CBC radio was gone, as well as all of our television stations. Because we had no media, we had no access to the news, so had no idea what had happened. It didn’t take me long to start feeling nervous without any media to watch or listen too.
I hated being in the void of not knowing what was happening in the world outside of McBride. Fortunately I had some TV shows I had previously taped on the VCR, and we were able to get through the night watching them.
The next day, January 21st, back at work at the BC Forest Service, I found out the reason for the blackout. It seemed that the ANIK satellite that beamed all the Radio and TV to us, went out. In fact, it was not only McBride that had no media, but all of Western Canada that had suddenly become isolated from the rest of the country and world: No news and no weather reports.
After work, I made sure I swung by a store to rent a video movie so we could get through the evening. John Bird a friend, joined us for our usual Friday night pizza, and then we watched “The Firm” with Tom Cruise.
The next day CBC radio returned at 1:30 and CBC TV also came back, but it was very grainy. It took a while for the other stations to come back on the air. On the news we heard the news that it was an electrical storm in space had knocked out the ANIK satellite, giving us the blackout.
Three days later we had all of our TV stations back, except for the Knowledge Network, which featured a lot of good British drama and other cultural programs. I phoned the Knowledge Network to see why the station hadn’t returned, and was told that they were back, which left me puzzled.
Then I found out that the local “cowboys” that run our community TV broadcasting, just decided to broadcast TSN which was a sports network, instead of the cultural Knowledge Network. (Most of McBride weren’t big into culture). I was sure stealing the signal and broadcasting the TCN station was highly illegal, but McBride is so small, remote, and unimportant, a lot of things are just done, without much worry about the legality.
Fortunately, the Knowledge Network did eventually come back.
View my paintings at: davidmarchant2.ca
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