CANADA 150
This, just in ...
A Nova Scotia radio station is having fun presenting the news as it would have unfolded 150 years ago.
When Dale Fawthrop came up with the idea of the 1867 News he was looking for a unique way to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday.
Now, as the show has completed its 100th episode on Tantramar Community Radio CFTA 107.9 FM, he’s amazed by how many people are following the exploits of Norman Albert Code and his cousin Morris, Alexander Graham, My Aunt Fannie and Bill Hertz’s daughter, Mega.
“I was talking to someone the other day whose wife didn’t want to get out of the car to go shopping until she heard the end of the program,” Fawthrop said. “It’s something I’ve heard several times. People really seem to enjoy the program.”
The 1867 News premiered on CFTA in January and will continue until the end of the year at which time Fawthrop will archive the show and burn it onto CDs to give to the Cumberland Public Libraries, the Cumberland County Museum and Archives and area schools.
The shows, generally six to eight minutes long, air twice daily on CFTA at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. The archived shows are also on the station’s website.
The 100th episode aired June 23 and the broadcasts for this week, June 26 to 30 will feature newspaper editorials that appeared just before or just after
July 1, 1867, as the battles between the Confederates and Anti-Confederates heated up.
Fawthrop, who created and produced the show with James Hand of CFTA, said a lot of research has gone into preparing for every program and he admitted it would’ve been extremely difficult to do without the Internet.
“So many books that were written around the time of Confederation are now out of print, but in some cases there are great digital archives that you can access. It takes a lot of work to find them, but they are there. There are also newspapers, such as the Lunenburg paper of July 4, 1867, talking about Confederation,” he said.
The news presented is factual for the period, although he
admitted he and Hand have a little fun with things like commercials and advertisements as well as with some of the characters portrayed in the show, such as One-Eyed Jimmy Hudson, Lucky Lefty and Lady Landsdowne.
While the shows prior to July 1 have focused on the period leading up to Confederation, they will also focus on the anti Con federation movement led by Joseph Howe.
“The differences were amazing. In Lunenburg they celebrated with fireworks while in Halifax they burned Tupper in effigy next to a rat,” Fawthrop said.
“It was a very divisive period. Even in the first parliament there were a lot of anti-Confederates from Nova Scotia.”