At the age of 12 Tchadas Leo started working part time as an apprentice at Campbell River’s local TV station, where he trained as a junior production assistant. Little did he realize, he would develop into a full-fledged broadcaster along with being a story teller and producer of his own podcasts.
Now at the age of 33, Ladysmith resident Leo has been making large inroads in his chosen profession.
Leo, who is from the Homalco First Nation in Campbell River, was recently honoured as the British Columbia Association of Broadcasters Performer Of Tomorrow, an award given to someone who has been in the broadcast industry for less than five years and who shows potential of good story telling, and good on air presence.
“I was totally unaware of the nomination or anything until my boss gave me the good news that I had been selected. It’s a very beneficial award for someone with such a young career,” Leo said.
"It’s so hard to label what I do as I do so many different things,” he said. “As far as my work with CHEK News I’m called a multi-media journalist, which involves going out and getting the story, filming it, editing it, pretty well everything. There is a team, but it’s pretty being the conductor and seeing it to completion.”
Leo also produces a podcast series titled ‘Our Native Land’ which also features on CHEK.
“I started in 2020 with that and it was kinda my introduction to CHEK. It’s only been about a year and half since I started being a journalist, it has been a very short window.”
The award Leo received is strictly for the work he’s doing for the news broadcast.
His podcast started from humble beginnings.
"When CHEK and I started talking, the podcast studio hadn’t been built yet. It was kinda like, we want you to be the first podcast. It was like being inside a broom closet that was being transformed into something where we could start producing quality products. I’m not exactly sure, but I believe that the studio is now producing over 10 consistent podcasts. It was kind of a humble beginning and then we put in two cameras and it went to now we’re on TV.”
Each episode of ‘Our Native Land’ is 13 episodes.
"We really moved towards visual storytelling especially because indigenous culture is more than just storytelling, so much of it is so beautiful it needs to be seen and not just heard.”
The traditional lands of the Homalco Nation are in Bute Inlet which is an hour northeast from Campbell River.
“I grew up on reserve, in Campbell River, so that is a quarter of my native identity and I’m also a quarter Native American from Washington. That’s where my name Tchadas came from,” he said.
Leo said the balance of his heritage is from his mother’s side and that is Peruvian and Argentinian.
He started volunteering for the Campbell River television station when he was 12. When he was 16 he was hired as an associate producer for CRTV and later on Shaw TV. A few years later he moved to Nanaimo to study digital media, but got involved in the car industry.
Leo said while doing commercials and digital work for the dealer he got into the financing end of car sales.
“I went up the ranks all the way to sales manager. So that was an eight or nine year pause in my media career, but then I left that adventure. I ended up buying a restaurant and got into the business of happiness as opposed to debt.”
Leo managed the Coast Bastion, in Nanaimo, for a year before COVID struck.
“That was a hit,” he said. “My wife and I were talking and she said what was something that didn’t feel like a day you worked. It hit it, it was when I was a kid going to the TV station, doing TV things.”
CHEK is an employee-owned company and Leo bought in as soon as he could.
"I am very proud of that,” he said. “When I work as a broadcaster I’m an owner but when I do my podcasts I’m working as a contractor.”
"My main goal is to lead the news. I remember when I was a kid watching the news and I realized that nobody looked like me and I’ve always remembered that. That memory triggered me when I decided to go back to study journalism,” Leo said. “Thank god there are more like us now, there are more Indigenous people doing news now on TV. So getting back to being an anchor, one day, yes but it’s going to take a bit more time, effort and hard work and learning to grow but I know I can put all that into it.”
"I think the media landscape is hungry for Indigenous content and I returned to the media at a time when the people were also hungry for that content. This content should have been readily available years and years ago. So the challenge wasn’t getting the job, the challenge was finding the right place to do it,” Leo said.
“I remember going to school and people were labeling me as an Indigenous reporter and I said I just want to be a reporter who happens to be Indigenous. I kept saying that over and over but now I’m starting to retract that. It’s OK being labelled either way, I am proud of work and I’m proud of my heritage. I’m proud of the stories that I do.”
Leo has no plans to leave Ladysmith anytime soon.
“There is a reason why I don’t move closer to Victoria. My wife and I love the community. I find the community friendly and heart warming. I find leaving the ‘big city’ and coming home to this, it’s calming, it’s unwinding, it’s home.”
