Open Air: Natural History Radio from Newfoundland and Labrador

Audio Archive - archive of Open Air programs

Introduction

In March 2000 Alder launched its flagship community radio show, Open Air: Natural History Radio from Newfoundland and Labrador. Open Air is broadcast weekly and streamed on the Internet for one hour on campus/community radio stations to St. John’s, Newfoundland, Fredericton, New Brunswick, and Toronto, Ontario.  Open Air is a magazine style radio program co-produced by Rachel Bryant and Janet Russell with a mix of regular columns, music and special features.  The Alder Institute produces Open Air with help from a variety of sources.

To tell the emerging story of the place where we live, Open Air combines readings by poets and storytellers with dispatches from remote field camps, conversations with researchers, profiles of Newfoundland birds, music, humor and more. A variety of voices - not all of them human - enlivens every episode of the program.

Newfoundland is one of the few relatively wild places in North America. It is also a battle ground for competing ideas about how people should exploit its rich, but fragile natural resources. We grapple with managing a collapsed cod population, assessing the risks of offshore oil drilling, debating the goals of and motivations behind the seal hunt, and deciding whether to conserve remnants of unique old growth forest. Yet we can not do this intelligently, or empathetically, without an understanding of and appreciation for ecology and natural history. In exploring the natural history of Newfoundland - as well as places farther afield - Open Air extends ecology into the public discourse.

How to Hear us

Open Air is broadcast each Wednesday night from 9:00 - 10:00 PM Newfoundland time on 93.5 FM,103.7 Cable and in RealAudio from CHMR's website. You can also hear it on 97.9 CHSR FM , Fredericton and 89.5 CIUT FM , Toronto. To listen to our past shows, visit Open Air's Audio Archive.

Regular Columns on Open Air

Crossing Tracks
Based on Lewis Carroll's enduring tale Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; originally sponsored by the Mountain Equipment Co-op's Environment Fund.

A Little Nightcap
Rachel visits Fred  Smith of the Royal  Astronomical Society of Canada, St. John's Centre, to talk about the night sky.

Mystery Guests
First you'll hear the unidentified sounds of our mystery guest. In a future show we'll  bring you a profile of our guest, usually drawn from the Checklist of the Birds of Insular Newfoundland and it's Continental Shelf Waters.

Nature in Mind
Open Air's Philosophy column.  Rachel talks with people about how, why and what we think about nature

Rare Air
Alder's audio series about wildlife species at risk. Started in 2001 with support from Environment Canada's Habitat Stewardship Program for species at risk.

Tales From the Trail
 A diverse selection of special guests bring you poetry, recitations and other forms of marking our passages through this life on earth. 

Pass the Salt
Join us for dinner. We'll pick the topic and select the guests. All you have to do is pull up a chair. We'll broadcast the recorded dinner conservation.

Insect of the Month
For years Memorial University entomologist, David Larson, has fielded enquiries from the public on small organisms.  In response he has compiled a series of seasonally relevant profiles which he shares with Open Air once a month.