Biigtigong Nishnaabeg citizen set to retire from long-standing journalism career

By Rick Garrick

THUNDER BAY — Biigtigong Nishnaabeg’s Ron Desmoulins is planning to retire from CBC Thunder Bay in early 2022 after performing every role at the radio station over his 22-year journalism career.

“I was the producer of the morning show for a number of years until I was asked to take on the executive producer of the station [about a year ago],” says Desmoulins, outgoing executive producer at CBC Thunder Bay, during a Sept. 27 phone interview. “So basically, I held every position at CBC Thunder Bay including being the host for a little while as a summer fill-in.”

Desmoulins says he initially began working at CBC Thunder Bay in 1999 as the morning show technician for about two-to-three years.

“I was the person responsible for operating the morning show and making sure everything went on air,” Desmoulins says. “If you’re not a morning person or early morning riser, it can be a little tough on you. You have to go in and be there at four-o-clock in the morning to get the show ready. I enjoyed being the morning show tech — you were responsible for what the show sounded like.”

Desmoulins says he also enjoyed his roles as a part-time reporter and a full-time reporter at CBC Thunder Bay.

“I was there to tell people’s stories, and as a reporter that was the one position where you had a chance to actually tell people’s stories,” Desmoulins says. “It was the actual talking to people that I found the most enjoyable.”

Desmoulins says the morning show producer position was “an interesting gig.”

“You never get to rest on your laurels,” Desmoulins says. “You can book the best guest and you can find the best music to go between those interviews and line up the taped items, whether they’re columns or first-person narratives and everything can work perfectly and it sounds like it was a great show and you’re really happy with it, but as soon as it ends at 8:30 or so, that’s it — you can’t say: ‘Hey, that’s great, we’re done for now.’ You’ve got to go on to the next day and maybe that next day those puzzle pieces don’t come together as well but you can’t get too upset about it. For the most part, it worked well, I did it for several years.”

Desmoulins says he took on the executive producer role when former executive producer Michael Dick, a Fort William citizen, moved on to his new role with CBC Network Radio.

“It’s never been a position I aspired to simply because it’s a little farther removed from why I went into journalism which was basically to tell people’s stories,” Desmoulins says. “Originally, it was only supposed to be for two or three months but then that just kept on getting added on and added on and then eventually Michael Dick took on a permanent role with the Network shows, so I had to stay in the position until they held a competition to find a permanent executive producer for Thunder Bay.”

Desmoulin and his spouse Leisa Desmoulins have already sold their home in Thunder Bay and are currently living in Orillia where Leisa is an associate professor at the Lakehead University Orillia campus.

“[Leisa] and I have decided to move back to southern Ontario to be closer to our kids, who have sort of all moved away,” Desmoulins says. “Because of the way the pandemic works, I can work from afar just with the technology.”

Desmoulins plans to get back into creating art with his photographs and to do some writing when he retires.