Resurgent Airwaves: A Celebration of Indigenous Radio

In partnership with the Faculty of Arts & Humanities and the Faculty of Information and Media Studies, we are very pleased to present an afternoon visit with Dan and Mary Lou Smoke as well as January Rogers to celebrate the importance, value, and legacies of Indigenous Radio in southwestern Ontario and beyond.

Resurgent Airwaves: A Celebration of Indigenous Radio
Featuring Dan & Mary Lou Smoke, January Rogers, and Kathleen Buttle
Saturday, 12 November 2022, 3PM
Museum London
(Registration below)

We will also have a display of materials from Dan and Mary Lou Smoke on display at Museum London during the Words Festival, 4 – 13 November!

Since the 1990s, the Smoke Signals Radio Show—a First Nations radio program hosted by Dan Smoke and Mary Lou Smoke—has explored the nuances of Indigenous culture, customs and beliefs and featured guests with diverse stories and worldviews. As the longest-running Indigenous radio program in Canada, the show has provided listeners with an expanse of invaluable knowledge and provided a local Indigenous, grassroots view of historical shifts, music and current events. Dan Smoke, a member of the Seneca Nation, Killdeer Clan, Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, and Mary Lou Smoke, a member of the Ojibway Nation, Bear Clan, from Batchawana Bay on Lake Superior, have carved a space for meaningful discourse to showcase the multifaceted and diverse forms of Indigeneity by Indigenous peoples, for Indigenous peoples and others in local, national and international communities.

Our event will also feature 2022 Western Writer-in-Residence January Rogers, who is renowned for her strong expression inspired by her many travels, experiences, relationship and Haudenosaunee perspective. She is a radio broadcaster, documentary producer and media artist. Her writings include poetry, short fiction, science fiction, playwriting, spoken word performance poetry and video poetry. She has been nominated for Best Spoken Word Recording at the Canadian Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards and the Native American Music Awards.

January has extensive experience in radio and has also produced radio documentaries; Bring Your Drum: 50 Years of Indigenous Protest Music. Resonating Reconciliation received awards for Best Radio at the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival. She was the City of Victoria Poet Laureate from 2012 to 2014. January continues to share her journey toward inner peace from the Indigenous perspective in the hope it will guide, interpret and inspire others to find their own truths and identity.

In partnership with Wordsfest.