Indigenous talk show hosts have national aspirations

By Sam Laskaris

ST. CATHARINES – An Indigenous-themed talk radio show continues to gain traction.

But Karl Dockstader and Sean Vanderklis, the co-hosts of the One Dish, One Mic radio show, still have lofty aspirations.

Their weekly two-hour show, held every Saturday from 10 am until noon, is currently being broadcast on three radio stations. They are NewsTalk 610 in St. Catharines, AM 800 CKLW in Windsor, and NewsTalk 1290 CJBK in London.

Dockstader, 41, is a member of Oneida of the Thames First Nation while Vanderklis, 34, is a member of Curve Lake First Nation.

The pair started off their show as a podcast four years ago. But it was then picked up two years ago and moved to the St. Catharines radio station, which can be found here: https://www.iheartradio.ca/610cktb

The show can also be downloaded from anywhere as it is available on iHeartRADIO’s podcasting app.

Dockstader and Vanderklis earned some recognition last year when they were awarded a fellowship courtesy of a partnership between CBC Indigenous and the Canadian Journalism Foundation.

The fellowship enables Indigenous journalists to work under the watchful eyes of mentors from CBC Indigenous.

“Our goal was to get picked up by a network and go national,” Vanderklis said. “But I think our goal now is to just bring our show national ourselves. So, we’re expanding into as many markets as we can. We have the okay to do so.”

Vanderklis said he is not quite sure just how many weekly listeners tune in to One Dish, One Mic.

“There is no real metric that we are giving,” he said. “But we were told what we want is audience engagement. So, the more people that text in, the better off we are. That’s a good way to judge. So, we really focus on that.”

Vanderklis added the pair average about 70 texts per week from listeners.

“It could be upwards of thousands,” he said of those who do tune in weekly.

And those listeners are not necessarily Indigenous.

“It’s really about Indigenous stories,” Vanderklis said. “We want to focus on Indigenous people. But a lot of our listeners are teachers who have no experience on Indigenous topics. That’s really the basis of our show now – it’s non-Indigenous people listening to our show.”

Vanderklis believes the One Dish, One Mic has become popular in part of the contrasting opinions of the hosts.

“I think part of our success is that very rarely will Karl and I agree on anything,” he said. “I think that’s why we’ve been successful. We’ve learned to deal with the hardships of not agreeing and having these hard conversations and oftentimes we do that on-air as well.”

Dockstader said that the pair have never been told that a subject is off-limits for discussion.

“That’s what is crucial for us,” he said. “We have editorial control. We’ve had openly anti-capitalist guests. We have been publicly critical of every official of every level in the hierarchy of Canada.

“We’ve gone after corporations without fear of whether they’re involved with our radio station or not. We’ve never gotten that sort of white piece of paper from above that’s saying, ‘Hey guys, rein it in on this.’ And if we ever did, honestly, I think that would be it for me. I would lose interest if someone was like, ‘Don’t do this.’ Or I would double down.”

High-profile guests that have appeared on One Dish, One Mic include federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, Sol Mamakwa, an Indigenous Ontario MPP, Indigenous author Jesse Thistle and Indigenous journalist Jesse Wente, who is also the chair of the Canada Council for the Arts.