Radio Keweenaw is a community broadcasting service from the Rabbit Island Foundation, which is a registered non-profit 501(c)(3). Rabbit Island Foundation facilitates an artist residency on Rabbit Island—91 acres of wilderness located in Lake Superior. A conservation easement assures the ecosystem will remain healthy in perpetuity. While the island itself serves as a platform for contemporary art, science, and conservation, the Rabbit Island Foundation and Radio Keweenaw are headquartered 15 miles northwest in the historic Village of Calumet in a building that is part of the Keweenaw National Historical Park. After extensive renovations in 2020, the building where Radio Keweenaw will reside is in the process of being added to the Calumet National Historic Landmark District.

A variety of community members from diverse backgrounds will produce radio shows in order to educate, entertain, and inspire. These programs will bridge art, conservation, ecology, history, Indigenous perspectives, and storytelling, as well as promoting community news and events.

“Community radio is an important form of knowledge dissemination, especially in rural areas where it can create opportunities for a geographically spread-out audience to engage in local debates,” says Abdul-Rahim Abdulai, Vincent Kuuteryiri Chireh, and Roza Tchoukaleyska in their 2021 paper Engaging Diverse Audiences: The Role of Community Radio in Rural Climate Change Knowledge Translation. The Keweenaw is home to some of the most pristine nature in the American Midwest, and the approximately 3,000 people who reside here are rugged, kind, and resilient (some would describe them as the embodiment of “Sisu”). Radio Keweenaw will proudly serve and reflect this community in a time where an increasingly fragmented media landscape has made local sources for information and dialogue more important than ever before.