WELY
Encyclopedia
WELY are radio stations based in the small town of Ely
Ely, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 3,724 people, 1,912 households, and 916 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,369.5 people per square mile . There were 1,912 housing units at an average density of 703.2 per square mile...

, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

. WELY serves the Boundary Waters Canoe Area of far northern Minnesota.

These stations are branded as "End of the Road Radio", offering quirky, eclectic, community-oriented programming. WELY broadcasts a wide range of material, from traditional polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...

s to rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 to zany wilderness "shout outs" for people camping in the surrounding wilderness.

The "front porch" studio is downtown, at 133 E. Chapman Street. The broadcast studio is just inside the front window. It's not unusual for visitors to just walk in, and soon find themselves on the air. Both stations share a transmitter site south of town, behind Kawishiwi Lodge and Canoe.

History

WELY was owned by retired CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 broadcaster Charles Kuralt
Charles Kuralt
Charles Kuralt was an American journalist. He was most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.Kuralt's "On the Road"...

 from 1995 to 1997, at which point it was purchased by Janice Erickson, a Twin Cities
Twin cities
Twin cities are a special case of two cities or urban centres which are founded in close geographic proximity and then grow into each other over time...

 transplant. In 2005, it was purchased by a local band of Ojibwe Indians, the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa
Bois Forte Band of Chippewa
Bois Forte Band of Chippewa are an Ojibwe Band located in northern Minnesota, along the border between the United States and Canada...

.
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