Anishinaabe journalist shares personal essay on national programming

By Rick Garrick

FORT WILLIAM — Fort William’s Jolene Banning enjoyed the opportunity to create her Documentary: The Sugar Bush for CBC’s The Current through CBC Radio’s Emerging Indigenous Doc Maker Program this past spring. The documentary is available online.

“It was a little bit of a roller coaster ride because I had never made a documentary before,” Banning says. “The training I got from Duncan McCue, who was my mentor, was that he wanted me to envision it, how it was going to sound, what were my chapters going to look like, and then COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) hit.”

Banning says the program was put on hold due to COVID-19 but she continued working on the sugar bush on Anemki Wajiw and posting photos of her activities online, which McCue saw and responded to by asking if she had audio.

“He said: ‘Let me see if we can do a workaround, let me see if we can change this from a documentary to a personal essay on The Current,’” Banning says. “So it got switched from a documentary-style format that was supposed to include the entire sugar bush collective to just my own personal essay.”

Banning says it was a “surreal feeling” to hear her essay on The Current as she had been listening to the program for many years.

“I was a little shocked, I was a little in awe, I was really surprised with myself that I made it to a national program,” Banning says. “Some of the comments I heard [from people] that I really liked were about the sound, how radio just sort of brought this to life and they felt they were in the sugar bush with me.”

Banning encourages people to apply to the Emerging Indigenous Doc Maker Program. Although this fall’s deadline is Oct. 16, CBC also offers an opportunity to submit an idea to the program at two other times during the year.

“I would say that everyone has a story to tell and to give it a shot,” Banning says.

Michael Dick, executive director of programs and specials for CBC Network Radio and a Fort William citizen, encourages people to reach out to him directly at michael.dick@cbc.ca if they are interested in applying to the program. Dick oversees a range of CBC Radio programs including Unreserved, Day Six, Tapestry, White Coat Black Art, Spark and Quirks and Quarks.

“It’s a unique opportunity for someone who wants to get their foot in the door and has a passion for making radio to do something really great,” Dick says. “It shows the larger commitment from CBC to include more Indigenous people on the airwaves, so I’m excited about it.”

Dick says people can do a range of stories, including a personal story about something in their life or community or someone in their community.

“The sky is the limit with the idea, but CBC is really good about making sure that the documentary itself is done to the producer’s standards and is done to the person who pitched its standards,” Dick says. “So it’s a lot of mentorship, a lot of guidance and a lot of support along the way to ensure that the final product when it airs on a national stage is something that everyone is proud of.”

The program is open to Indigenous freelancers and storytellers, recent broadcast/journalism graduates and CBC staff.

“We need more Indigenous voices on CBC and we need more Indigenous voices in media in general,” Dick says. “This is an incredible opportunity to put someone on the national stage.”