As a budding broadcast reporter, Whit Fraser had covered his share of court cases by the time he stepped into a Spence Bay (now Taloyoak) courtroom in 1970. But as the bright-eyed newcomer to the North watched a bewildered Inuit hunter named Tootalik stand before a territorial judge, charged with a hunting violation, he found himself asking, “what's going on here?”
“To see (Tootalik) standing there so straight, strong and proud and be told he was illegally shooting a polar bear – the insanity of it all. It changed me,” said Fraser in a recent interview with Yellowknifer.
The formative moment is one of many captured in the acclaimed former CBC reporter’s new memoir, True North Rising. The book, set to released on Oct. 15, is a candid charting of Fraser’s journey as a young journalist navigating a galvanized Northwest Territories during a time of tremendous social and political change.
As Fraser – now retired and living with his wife in Ottawa – writes, he witnessed young, driven Indigenous leaders shake off the shackles of colonialism, while passionate pioneers of broadcast radio, like himself, were there to tell their stories one radio hit at a time.
“I had no clue what I was getting into when I stepped on an old DC-4 and headed North,” remembered Fraser, who was an early-20-something from Nova Scotia when he accepted a job with CBC Frobisher Bay (now Iqaluit) in 1967.
Three years later, after transferring to CBC Yellowknife, Fraser would say he'd “stumbled on the best unfolding story in Canada.”
He recalls working in the capital's modest CBC station – a step up from the “bare bones broadcasting,” he'd been tossed into as a rookie in Frobisher Bay.
“We started every morning with nothing in front of us – just a telephone and personal contacts. We generated all of our own news,” said Fraser, thinking back to a cramped and cluttered newsroom located beside Yellowknife’s current City Hall.
Fraser and his colleagues weren't without competition in the evolving media landscape of the North.
Fraser said he'd often be chasing stories before Jack “Sig” Sigvaldason, the late founder of News/North and Yellowknifer, could get to them first.
Even with the journalistic jousting, the rivals remained close.
“We were good friends and had good respect – but we always had to beat each other, too,” said Fraser, adding Sigvaldason was a “great newspaperman.”
Fraser also crossed paths with CBC Yellowknife broadcaster Joe Tobie – one of the many friends in the business that shaped his career and life in the North.
A skilled Dene trapper, Tobie spoke fluent Tlicho and Chipewyan, and knew Slavey and Cree. He'd take to the airwaves twice a week, interpreting Health Canada nutrition and sanitation tips into Dene languages.
The two became friends. They'd hunt caribou and grab beers at the Gold Range. In 1975, Fraser brought Tobie onto to a team of broadcasters to cover the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, the federal royal commission, overseen by Justice Thomas Berger, to weigh the environmental, cultural, social and economical consequences of a proposed pipeline route through the Mackenzie River delta and Indigenous land.
In 1977 – before Berger recommended there be no pipeline until Indigenous land claims are settled and more environmental studies are completed – Fraser found himself taking a stand, and a lot of heat for it.
During a Berger-led hearing in Norman Wells, Fraser stood up, threw his pencil and walked to the witness chair after hearing a bout of racist remarks from non-Indigenous speakers.
“I don't want the pipeline!” he shouted.
The move put his career in jeopardy, he said, and some wanted him ousted from the North all together, but he'd do it all over again.
“I felt very strong. There should always be room for the real, tough questions,” said Fraser. “Be accused of being an activist rather than a flack for company or government.”
Fraser would go on to witness “tears of joy” from Inuit, First Nation and Metis in 1982, when their rights were finally enshrined in the Constitution of Canada. Then working for as a national news broadcaster, Fraser saw of efforts of people he'd met in the North come to fruition after years of political struggle.
Those meaningful milestones, achieved through persistence and prevalence, are what Fraser hopes readers of True North Rising will reflect on.
Fraser will return to the North when he makes a book signing stop at the Yellowknife Public Library on Oct. 13.