Meadow Lake Tribal Council launches Indigenous-owned internet service provider

As the world has become more connected online, the Indigenous communities of the Meadow Lake Tribal Council in Saskatchewan have struggled with poor internet connection and high costs.

This is about to change as a new Indigenous-run internet service provider, Beaver River Broadband, hopes to bring internet access to several rural communities.

“A lot of our First Nations are lacking that connectivity, and we’re looking at different ways of bringing in a different kind of broadband. The ones that are out there right now are the big big big companies that were providing broadband but yet a lot of our First Nations (people) can’t afford it,” said Tribal Chief Richard Ben.

In order to address the issue, Meadow Lake Tribal Council partnered with SaskTel and Wood River Controls.

“We went up and made a plan through all nine nations and then we went back and started talking about it … and we just kept talking and growing and you know building that as it came and here we are,” said Wood River Controls CEO, John Degraauw.

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Degraauw stressed that SaskTel plays a large role in the partnership because they already have the towers and fiber network available all over the province.

SaskTel President and CEO Doug Burnett said it’s not possible to get to every community, but that’s where partnerships like this come in to play.

“We are working with smaller ISP’s, internet service providers, to take the broadband to what we call the last mile to some of these small locations and folks like beaver river broadband are perfectly situated for being able to do that,” said Burnett.

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Ben said the pandemic brought struggles to some First Nations communities as the world became more connected.

“We were struggling, we were moving back and forth trying to find resources for our kids to learn instead of them sitting at home not getting that attention with school,” said Ben.

Beaver River Broadband is launching its service starting in five communities this fall, including:

• Cowessess First Nation
• Ministikwan Lake Cree Nation
• Eagle Lake
• Moudy Lake
• Birch Narrows Dene Nation

The Meadow Lake Tribal Council is hoping to reach even more communities in the future.