Cabin Talks

Photographers Pat Kane and Amber Bracken are two of Canada's finest. Pat invited Amber to Yellowknife as part of the city's Far North Photo Festival, and the two joined Cabin Radio's Jesse Wheeler and Scott Letkeman to talk about how they see their identity as photographers – and what it takes to just switch off when your job is about framing the world around you.

Sarah Erasmus describes the motivations driving her into "the next chapter" – which means closing her Erasmus Apparel storefront in Yellowknife after nearly 15 years.

Chief Supt Dyson Smith is in charge of RCMP in the Northwest Territories. How are police trying to meet the demands of northern community leaders? How are RCMP trying to close a 25% vacancy rate? What's the threat of drugs to small communities, should bail be reformed, and why do a significant number of cases collapse when they end up in front of a judge? We asked him.

Hot Frosty is a 2024 festive hit and Yellowknife's Dustin Milligan is the desirable ice sculpture-turned-man who stars in it. Dustin joined Cabin Radio's Clams 'n' Moose to talk about the movie and more.

Multiple Northwest Territories MLAs say the new Indigenous employment policy being rolled out by the NWT government gets it wrong. Richard Edjericon and Kieron Testart, two MLAs who oppose the policy, join Cabin Talks to discuss their concerns. Caroline Wawzonek, the minister responsible for the policy, tells us why she believes it's the right path forward.

Up Here, a magazine that covers Canada's North, is coming back to the NWT less than a year after it was sold to a Yukon-based company. Meet the new owners.

"We play this giant game of Tetris constantly." Kyle Thomas talks about growing Bush Order Provisions, a Yellowknife market garden, bakery and farm store, and the health of the city's urban agriculture economy.

Yellowknife composer and performer Carmen Braden's fourth studio album, A Hard Light, just came out. Join a listening party featuring Braden, producer Mark Adam and Cabin Radio's Ollie Williams. We'll go track by track through the album: hear the music with commentary from the people who made it. This is excerpted from Afternoons at the Cabin, broadcast live on Cabin Radio on the afternoon of December 10, 2024. Listen live via the Cabin Radio website or get the app.

We tried a lighthearted Youth Parliament story. Not everyone loved it. So we talked to the NWT's Speaker of the House about how we get and nurture politicians.

The Northwest Territories has one type of snake – the red-sided garter snake – and it lives around Fort Smith, an area pummelled by wildfires last year. How are the snakes coping with that? Are they in trouble or are things OK? Johanna Stewart is a master's student in environment science whose job is to spend two years out there among the snakes, tracking them and learning what's actually going on. We interviewed Johanna three times over the course of this year to figure out how that research works, what Johanna is looking for, and what we know so far. Plus you'll meet Big Bertha, a snake with a past.

Lee Selleck was a journalist in Yellowknife when, after a bitter and months-long strike, nine people were killed in an explosion at Giant Mine in 1992. He and Francis Thompson wrote a book about Giant, Dying for Gold, five years later. Now, the pair are releasing an updated version. Lee tells us what the updated book covers, how it felt to be a part of the recent CBC podcast series about Giant, and whether he and the city have ever really moved on from what happened on September 18, 32 years ago.

Viking men have spent a millennium getting all the credit. What were the women doing? We take a break from our usual northern news diet to meet Canadian author Heather Pringle, whose new book – The Northwomen: Untold Stories From the Other Half of the Viking World – uses archaeology, Icelandic sagas and even old cannabis seeds to tell us more about the power some Viking women held. Spoiler alert: contains sorcery.

A review of how the NWT managed its firefighters and fought 2023's fires – the worst season on record – has landed. Ollie gives you a guide to what the review says and asks the environment minister and senior officials how they'll use it to make changes.

When Shirley Coumont picked up a hitch-hiker in Enterprise, it turned out to be a German adventurer (and tennis coach) who's seen more of the Earth than virtually anyone else. Now he's seen the inside of Cabin Radio, too. Sascha Grabow and Shirley stopped in for a chat before the next leg of his neverending journey begins.

When a wildfire hit a lonely highway, Dylan Jones and Scott Yuill were two of the only people who could help. They told Ollie how they spent one night this month driving through burning debris, smashing down fences and calming terrified truckers to get everyone to safety when a fire engulfed the road.

A year after her city was evacuated because of oncoming wildfires, Mayor of Yellowknife Rebecca Alty joins Ollie to look back at those three weeks. How did she see her job at the time? How did she cope? What lessons have the mayor and the city learned from last year's experience and the reviews that have followed?

A Nasa jet that just landed in Yellowknife is near the end of a decade-long mission to understand the changing northern landscape. The project has the cute acronym ABoVE – which we'll explain – and Chip Miller is one of the scientists leading it. After 2023's disastrous fires, ABoVE is uniquely positioned to tell us what wildfires (and other factors like changing permafrost) are doing to the land, and maybe that can help us adapt. Bonus: if you see this in time, there's an open house at the Nasa jet on Thursday, August 15. Find more details on the Cabin Radio events calendar.

On August 12, 2023, Fort Smith was told to evacuate because of oncoming wildfires. Everyone fled to Hay River – only for Hay River to be evacuated the following day. A weeks-long odyssey followed, with thousands of evacuees spread across Alberta. Back in Smith, town councillor Dana Fergusson began providing regular video updates that became one of the main sources of information for the 3,000 or so people that call Fort Smith home. She joined us exactly one year later to look back at the fires, the evacuation and what has happened since.

Marie Wilson, a Yellowknife resident and former CBC North broadcaster and director, was the lone non-Indigenous Truth and Reconciliation commissioner. Now, she has published a book about her central role in the TRC's years documenting the experiences of thousands of people in Canada's residential schools. That book is North of Nowhere: Song of a Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner – you can order it from Yellowknife Books. Marie joined Ollie to talk about the book, her experience on the commission, and Canada's response over almost a decade since the commission's final report.

This episode is just for Yellowknife coffee freaks. Barren Ground Coffee is taking over Birchwood. What does that mean? Need to catch up? Read our coverage of the sale. Then join Ollie as he questions Barren Ground's Eric Binion about how one of the city's best-loved coffee shops will look under new management and what you can expect.