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Here is presented the history of the Hougen Group, and of the people and companies
that helped form it. It began as a small family-owned store and has grown to
include a cable TV station, a radio station, and a multimedia company, along
with car and truck dealerships, and other retail establishments. Here's some
background information.
In the mid-1950s, there were many forms of entertainment in the Yukon, from the Aurora Borealis streaming across a winter
sky to a troop of CanCan dancers livening up the night. However, for those looking for activity on a television set, the
Yukon offered nothing.
Rolf Hougen began the project of bringing television to Whitehorse by travelling to Ketchikan, Alaska, to see a new cable
TV station that had been built from scrap. He returned to Whitehorse convinced it could work. Along with young laywers,
George Van Roggen and Erik Nielsen, the vision began to slowly take form. In a couple years, NHL star Neil Colville and
local Bert Wybrew were among the main players, and soon they were the man power that would keep the tiny station running.
There was one camera in a room at the old Whitehorse Inn, and a couple miles of cable around the town. Bert Wybrew and Neil
Colville climbed the poles and wired up subscriber's homes during the day and operated the TV station at night. They
worked 16 hours a day, seven days a week.
After being told by experts that it would never work, Wybrew replied "it's a good thing we didn't know that in the
beginning because if we did, we wouldn't have tried it". Despite unheard of challenges, WHTV wasn't off air during
scheduled time for more than five hours. It was the first cable company to show local interviews, news, weather, and
live coverage of social events. This programming included broadcasts from the bowling alley in the basement, a camera
simply pointed out the window and capturing the locals down on Main Street, and the infamous program, "Rippling Rhythms",
a live shot of a goldfish bowl accompanied by easy listening music.
The small station did its best to show its subscribers news and sports from "Outside". Sports tapes were shipped up from
down south, but were late and without commentary. Christmas parades were shown long after the snow melted, but for the
entertainment-hungry viewers, any variety was welcome. By the mid-1960s, WHTV was showing programs with only a one-week
delay. Soon after that, news and sports were being shipped by air and the delay was down to 24 hours.
In 1969, WHTV moved to new studios on the second floor of the Broadcast Building, which it shared with sister radio
station, CKRW. The small cable station that now had an inventory of over $100,000 and within the next year would employ
a staff of nine. By 1977, WHTV had grown to a dozen channels of colour TV and was officially a success.
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