Bay St. George is located on the sou'west coast of Newfoundland, Canada. Newfoundland is the tenth largest island in the world with a population of about 600,000. Its capital, St. John's, is situated closer to Ireland than Toronto.

Basque and Portugese fishermen first came to Bay St. George more than 600 years ago. Fishing rights and the coast belonged to France until 1904. Newfoundland itself only joined Canada in 1949.

The population around Bay St. George is a mixture of aboriginal MiqMaq and descendants of French, English, Scottish and Irish settlers. The town, Stephenville, was traditionally a French settlement but became an American military base from the 1940's until 1969 - the time of greatest prosperity in the area.

The unique francophone population is being assimilated. It is unique in North America because many can trace their lineage back only several generations to settlers from France. People still talk of grandparents who could speak neither English or French - only Breton.

The "third world" economy of the region has been hard hit by the closure of the cod fishery. Environmentalists say the foreign owned pulp industry will cut all the forest within five years. The rural communities suffer from massive out-migration.

Nevertheless this region is the birthplace of Newfoundland's co-operative movement. Local organizations and communities have a history of working together collaboratively.

What do we want to do?

We want, if technically and financially feasible, to establish a decentralized FM community radio network around the bay.

(A second option is to enable the francophones to broadcast from their studio in La Grand' Terre - Mainland - to the other francophone communities in Cap St-Georges and L'Anse a Canards- Black Duck Brook.)

The farming communities on the south side of the bay are also planning to make an application for local community radio.

The college in Stephenville also has a licenced student radio local AM station. About ten years ago the college considered the possibility of using a more powerful transmitter for long distance education.

It would seem to make sense to combine these initiatives ( and perhaps more - the MiqMaq have no local media.)

Technical questions:

1. We have an engineering study from 1995 which recommends the francophones put a powerful transmitter on a peninsula hilltop and send the signal by high speed phone lines to the transmitter.

The lines are expensive to install and necessitate a high annual fee. Is there a less expensive option in 2001?

2. Could low-powered transmitters with uni-directional antennas be used to relay off the powerful transmitter on the hilltop?

Financial question:

Are there any international bodies which may consider helping to finance either of our options - the community radio network for all of francophone and anglophone Bay St. George or only the service for the francophone communities? (We recognize that the option of networking the whole bay may be neither technically nor financially feasible.)

The map - Bay St. George

The report for the Sharing Our Future developmental stage.

Sharing Our Future

Transmitter Coverage (a PDF file)